


Hidden Talent

by cutiecat92



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Xiaolin Showdown (Cartoon)
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Fanart Included, Jack-Centric, M/M, Original Character(s), Triwizard Tournament, Veela, xover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 50,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7379836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutiecat92/pseuds/cutiecat92
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sick and tired of the constant humiliation in the Xiaolin world, Jack discovers a secret about his family lineage and finds a way to really shine.<br/>Coming into his family inheritance, will Jack fit in at this Magical world as a 'good' student or will he fall back into his evil ways?<br/>--<br/>In other words: Jack finally gets his invite to attend Hogwarts just in time for the Triwizard Tournament.<br/>This is an old fic I came across in one of my external hard-drives, so trust me; It DOES get better!</p><p>FanArt:  http://amanda040.deviantart.com/gallery/61819231/Hidden-Talent-Fanfic-Art</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Emotional Wreck

 

 

It was late and dark by the time a particular red-haired ‘Evil’ genius finally arrived back to his ‘Evil’ Lair from another unsuccessful attempt to retrieve the Shen-Gong-Wu, his clothing charred and ripped from the failed Showdown, caked in a thick layer of mud and soaked to the bone with rain water.

 

Entering his lab Jack limped over to his bedroom connected and only Wu: The Monkey Staff and The Changing Chopsticks were thrown onto the stone floor as he sat down on his large silk bed and hid his head in his hands. He was depressed, no doubt about that and he had good reason to be, it wasn’t that he didn’t get the Wu, that was a normal everyday thing. The reason was that everyone had seen fit to make fun of his misfortune and calling him insulting name’s, making fun of him and that his new invention had blown up in his face sending him flying into a puddle of mud. In front of Chase no less! If it wasn't terrible enough when they started calling him worthless, worm, freak, useless and others, Chase had even joined in!

 

It hadn’t been as enthusiastic or mean-spirited, but even his off-handed comment had been more painful than any of the monks spiteful torments. That was why the usually unshakable cheerful Goth was depressed, probably for the first time in his entire life. He’d been humiliated in front of Chase, his Idol, his crush, the man he respected above all else and then he got insulted by him too! And to add even more insult to injury, his new invention that had taken him 3 days straight, without sleep, to build had exploded!

 

Shaking off the pathetic feeling gathering in his chest, Jack stood from his bed before limping into his bedroom and walked over to the mirror and looked at his pasty reflection.

 

_“Brat” the Dragon of the Earth muttered quietly._

 

_“A worthless brat” the Brazilian said correcting his Texas friend._

 

Jack sniffed, peeling off his socked-wet coat from his small frame.

 

_“Pathetic worm” the tall, long-haired Dragon-war-Lord snorted, crossing his arms._

 

The wet Goth clenched his fists, looking back into the mirror and saw his running eyeliner which was all smeared down his white cheeks, the hurtful words replaying in his mind.

 

_“Freak” a Japanese girl with a dyed-blue Mohican said, putting her hands on her hips, sneering down at the boy covered in mud._

 

Jack clenched his teeth and hands, his blunt nails digging into his skin resulting in a thin trail of blood to drip through his fists. ‘Freak’ was the one insult that still plagued him from his early childhood. The white freak. The Spicer’s freaky child. Goth Freak. Freak, freak, freak, freak!

 

 _ **“I‘m Not a Freak!”**_ he screeched at his reflection in the mirror, which suddenly shattered at the boy's angry cry; sending glass flying around the room, a small shard piece slamming Jack on the forehead. Jerking back in shock, Jack shakily lifted his hand to his face before pulling it away to see deep crimson blood running down his pale fingers. As Jack saw the red substance he couldn’t hold it in anymore; falling to his knees Jack hid his face in hands and sobbing heavily. _‘It Hurts… **It Hurts**. All those insults…like a **Sharp** stab…because It’s All **True** ’_. The blood began to run down his face into his teary eyes and mouth _‘I am useless. Pathetic! The Xiaolins Hate me. The Heylins Hate me. Chase Hates me. The World Hates me… I Hate Myself… hate, hate, hate. I.. I…I’m… unwanted’_

 

Jack curled into himself, pulling his knees to his chin and wrapped his arms around them, sobbing into his knees. _‘Why do I bother? Maybe I should give up. Why try and rule a world that doesn’t care for you or that you're alive?’_ he thought as he sat there on the cold floor, tear slowly falling down his face.

 

 _‘Why do I try and be evil anyway? Why do I want people to fear me? Why do I try and get respect through fear when I’m a genius? I can do anything If I put my mind to it! After all, I built a plasma cannon, which should be impossible! And I was only 10 years old at the time! So why have I been wasting my time being with world domination?! The Tobacco company has already done that!’_ the red-head nodded as he finally comes to the conclusion as he pulled himself up and began to clean himself up, stopping his tears.

 

‘And plus’ he thought, perking up slightly as began to finally think over his life choices’, putting a band-aid on his cut forehead ‘I’d make a crap overlord, even my own robots give me lip’ Jack thought with a quiet giggle, drying his wet hair with a towel.

 

“There, all clean” the albino said, looking into the broken mirror, trying to reassure himself. _‘Why’d it shatter anyway?’_   being to too tired to care at that point he gave a shrug before heading back to his room to get ready for bed. He’d get one of his Jack-Bots to clean up the glass later, but for now sleep was the only thing on the teen's mind and tomorrow would be a very busy day for him.

 

But he had no idea how much the shattering of his mirror meant and how that one incident was going to change his life forever.

 


	2. Turning Your Life Around And Family History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack gets a mysterious letter

* * *

 

 

It had been a week since the mirror incident and true to his word Jack had stopped going after the Shen-Gong-Wu _(with great self-control and a slap from a Jack-Bot)_ but kept the one’s he already had of course and he started selling some of his low-grade weapons to the government. He’d kept the blueprints seeing as he didn’t want them to know how to build them and copyrights; where‘s the profit if they only pay him once? He’d also started working on high-tech prosthetic limbs and the cure for the common cold in his spear time, just to balance it out; a little bad here, a little good there and Wah-Lah! You’ve become neither one or the other!

 

At the moment Jack was in his re-named Evil Lear; The laboratory, working on his Heli-Pack, trying to get it to work on sola-power, the song; ‘Bring me to life’ by Evanescence playing from his computer on full-blast in the background, after all; he may not be evil but he‘s still a Goth. But with him being so focused on his work and the noise from his welding and music, he didn’t even notice a brown barn owl tapping on the small window to his lab/basement.

 

“Jackie, Jackie its time to get ready for the party!” Jack’s mother voice yelled from the top of the stairs, moments later a middle-aged woman with long blond hair and wearing a fancy light-blue dress came down the stairs into the basement. “Jackie! Jack!! **JACK!** ” she screeched over the music finally getting the young teen's attention.  
Turning off the welder and pulling up his goggles from his eyes “Music OFF!” he yelled; making the music switch off immediately at the sound of his voice.

 

The albino Goth quickly turned to his mother and smiled “What‘s up, mum?” he asked, putting the welder down.

 

“I said ‘Time to get ready for the party’, it starts in an hour, so Get Ready! And don’t even _think_ about wearing that old tattered coat!” she ordered, scolding look on her face.

 

“Don’t worry mum, I got rid of it last week; it's in the attic” Jack told her with a dismissive wave and a sad smile, that had to be the hardest thing he’d had to do; giving up the ’evil’ look. He’d had the coat ever since he first made it his mission to concur the world at the age of 8! “I‘ll go put on my suit” he added as he headed towards his room to change, leaving his mother standing there stunned.

 

“Got rid of it?” she asked no-one-in-particular. Still in shock, she made her way back up the stairs.

 

While his mum left Jack washed the gel out of his hair and whipped away any make-up, then went to put on his suit, it was black, the shirt was crimson and the tie was also black. He combed his hair so he didn’t look like he just got out of bed, but also so he didn’t look like a geek.

 

Sighing tiredly the Goth looked up at his reflection in his new mirror and smiled; he didn’t look like a freak or a weirdo, he looked like a normal albino teen who just happened to have red hair, which was NOT dyed, no matter what some believe. He had always wondered how he could be albino but have been born with red hair…but who cares! It looked cool! And it matched his eyes!

 

Jack was busy straitening his tie when heard a tapping sound coming from the window, confused by the sound, Jack peeked out of the bathroom door to look at the small basement window “W-what the hell?” he muttered; there, sitting outside the small glass screen was a large, brown, owl staring back at him with its large blue eyes, a letter held in its beak.

 

Carefully, the short Goth made his way over to the window and opened it. Once the window was open, the large bird wasted no time and shot in making Jack jump back with a girly scream. The owl dropped the letter on one of Jack’s work tables and flew back out the window without a moment's notice. Jack just stood there, dumbly looking between the window and the letter. Shrugging, he made his way over to the letter; a random owl swooping into his lab wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened to him. Anxiously, Jack picked up the discarded letter and examined it, the envelope was made of a yellowish old-fashioned paper and it had red inked writing that looked a bit like calligraphy, it read:

 

 _-Jack .V. Spicer_  
_39, Rich Street, Beijing, China_  
_Basement (aka) Lab-_

  
Jack blinked dumbly and raised an eyebrow “How in the Seven-Hell‘s did they know I‘d be in my Lab?!”(when is he not?!?!). The Goth was considered just throwing the letter away, but as always, his scientist-curiosity got the better of him. He quickly ripped opened the envelope, pulled out the letter and started reading.

 

_-Dear Mr. Jack .V. Spicer_

_I am happy to say that you are finally accepted to join Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

_Due to reasons unknown, your wizarding abilities have only just become active, unlike most wizards who receive the powers at a young age._  
_For this, we at Hogwarts would like to invite you to join us at the beginning of the next school term on the 1st of September. You will be joining your fellow 4th years._  
_And seeing as your from a pure-blood family I am sure your guardian will be able to help you catch up with the 3 years you have missed so far._

_Hope to see you soon, sincerely Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.-_

 

After staring at the letter blankly for a full 5 minutes the small albino opened his mouth to say only one word:

 

**“MUM!!!”**

 

* * *

 

  
“MUM!!” Jack’s high pitched voice squealed through the halls of the Spicer Manor, starting the hired help that where preparing for tonight’s party, while they simply ignored the boy’s cry, his blond bomb-shell of a mother who had been ordering them around however could not.

 

“I‘m in here, Jackie!” she called as the sound of frantic foot steps rushed in her direction. What was wrong with the boy now? Had he found another spider in his sink again?  
“Mom!” Jack cried as he scrambled clumsily into the ballroom, clad in his best suit and waving a surprisingly familiar looking yellowish envelop “Look at this, Mom! It‘s gotta’ be some sort of stupid joke, right?!”

 

“Calm down, Jackie and let me see” Lucy Spicer scolded, snatching the letter from her son’s hand in barely hidden excitement. This couldn’t really be what she hoped it was could it?! Quickly unfolding the letter and scanned the first sentence before squealing in glee, scaring her son and all the servants present shitless at the sudden sound.

 

“M-Mom?”

 

“Come with me, Jackie! The rest of you keep working!” Lucy ordered, grabbing Jack’s wrist in a vice grip before dragging the teen out of the hall and to her bedroom.

 

“What‘s going on, Mom!?” Jack yelped as he was pushed to sit on his parents massive, imported bed as his mother began jumping up and down like some demented schoolgirl, clutching the letter to her large chest.

 

“I cant believe it! Its finally happened! You‘re not a squib!!!” she squealed happily, lunging at the teen and hugging him tightly, nearly suffocating him with her cleavage.

 

“MOM! What is going on!?!?”

 

“Isn’t it obvious by the letter. Honey? You’ve finally grown into your wizarding abilities! You’re a Wizard!”

 

“A Wizard?!” Jack squeaked. A wizard was like a witch, right? He didn’t want to turn out like Wuya!

 

“Yes! Just like your father!” Lucy giggled, patting her little boy’s red hair “Everyone in the family has magical blood, baby. But not all of it wizard, of course”

 

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?!” Jack growled, earning a smack to the back of this head for swearing.

 

“I didn’t want this to hang over your head as a squib; squibs are those from magical families with no magic and I didn’t want to upset you” Lucy scolded before smiling brightly

 

“You always were a late bloomer, Honey” she giggled at the teens red cheeks, running a delicate hand through his hair; pulling it away from his face as she inspected it “How didn’t I notice your Veela blood awakening?! your becoming so pretty!” she squealed, squishing his cheeks in her hands “Maybe its all that grease and oil your always cover yourself in?”

 

“Veela? What the hel-heck is that?!”

 

“Veela‘s are beautiful humanoid creatures also known as ‘Samodiva’ or ‘Iele’. My family interbred with them long ago and still do. Didn’t you ever wonder why all your relatives on my side are un-naturally beautiful?” Lucy smirked, releasing Jack’s face as she flicked some of the blond curls over her shoulder smugly.

 

“But I’ve never been-”

 

“Butterfly effect, Honey” she smiled down at the teen, flicking his now shapely nose “You begin as an ugly little caterpillar and turn into beautiful butterfly at the age of magical maturity…11, Dear”

 

“But I’m 14!” Jack pouted in annoyance, he hated being, in his mothers words, a slow developer. He’d had too put up with being a gangly, over-proportioned freak for 3 years longer than everyone else? No Fare!

 

“Yes, yes, Dear” Lucy nodded with an un-concerned wave, standing from the bed once again, re-adjusting her dress before heading for the door; there was no point in explaining any more to the boy right now while he was sulking, it was best to just leave him to it “When your done thinking this over don’t forget to attend the party, your father‘s still not home and I need an escort” she added, waving over her shoulder to the pouting child.

 


	3. Quidditch World Cup

 

 

“What‘s Quidditch?” Jack asked, looking up from his copy of ‘Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them’ to his mother who, since last week when he had shown her the letter, had been smiling non-stop and showering him with attention, not that he minded, its just she can become a bit overbearing... Well, what mother doesn’t?

 

They were in the magic section of the Library in their Manor, the once ‘secret’ section; not that Jack ever used the Library before, he was quite content with getting all his information online. Jack was calmly sitting one of the loveseats and his mother, Lucy, was jumping up and down in excitement, waving two tickets in the air, squealing loudly like some sugar-high teen, wasn’t that supposed to be him? Jack wasn’t really paying much attention to this maturity factor though but more to the question: how in the world could she jump a foot in the air and land safely repeatedly, while wearing stilettos?!

 

“It‘s a game that Wizards play on broomsticks, It‘s like football is too muggles.”

 

“Sooo~… It‘s a competitive sport that the whole world loves and people end up having bar-fights in honour of their favourite team?” the Goth asked, flipping another page in his book in a bored manner.

 

“Yes! Wait.. NO! I mean, Ah! Don’t confuse your mother, Jackie!” she whined, stomping her foot childishly. “Quidditch is the most celebrated sports the wizarding word has! The ONLY sports wizards really enjoy and I have tickets it the World Cup!!!” Lucy squealed, spinning around on her heel.

 

“Why? You never seemed into sports before.” the albino asked, looking up from the book, down to his mother's stilettos again with fascinated eyes.

 

“You’re a wizard now, Honey. And a teenaged wizard at that! You should be learning about Quidditch and I got these tickets as a well-done gift!”

 

“And…?”

 

“ _Lucius Malfoy and his son invited us_ …But that doesn’t matter! We’re going!”

 

Jack gave a tired sigh and put his book down “Fine. When are we going?”

 

Lucy Spicer grin in triumph and patted her son on the head “6 tonight”

 

* * *

 

It was 5 minutes to 6-o-clock and Jack was quietly sitting in his Lab reading a copy of _‘Quidditch Through The Ages’_ , trying to understand the ridiculous game that he was going to be forced to watch. All in all, it wasn’t very hard to understand the sport itself, kind of like a cross between basketball and polo, except you ride brooms and not horses.

 

“Come On, Jack! Lucius and his son will be waiting!”

 

Snapping out of his pondering the Goth quickly jumped out of his seat and straightened his white scarf and black jumper before chucking the green-covered book onto one of his tables and jogged up to the main living area to find his mom standing by the fireplace, wearing a tight black dress which only came up to her knees and showed a LOT of cleavage. A simple gold chain around her neck and a white shawl around her arms.

 

“You look nice Honey, it's simple.” Lucy smiled “And we match!”

 

Jack groaned quietly at the observation while heading over to the fireplace his mother was standing beside “Floo-Powder?” he asked, remembering reading something on the subject.

 

“Yep! We‘re meeting up with the Malfoy‘s before heading out” she grinned, checking her hair in the mirror again.

 

“Who‘s playing again?” the teen asked, as his mother took some powder and stood in the fireplace.

 

“It’s Ireland versus Bulgaria. Now, just copy what I do, Honey. MALFOY-MANOR!”

 

**_‘FLASH!’_ **

 

Jack jumped back in surprise as his mother disappeared in an explosion of green flames _‘Shit. I'm_ not _doing that’_ he thought as the green-fire faded and Jack approached it slowly.

 

Maybe if he went to his Lab they would give up waiting for him and just leave him?…

 

Not a chance. When his mother wanted something, she got it no matter what; she’d come back and drag him by the hair if she had too.

 

Sighing wearily, the teenage genius took a hand-full of powder and stumbled into the antique fireplace “MALFOY-MANOR!!!”

 

* * *

 

“Ahh!” Jack squealed as he was thrown out of the portal onto the polished, porcelain tiled floor of the Malfoy’s entrance hall.

 

“What took you so long Jackie?” Lucy asked from her place standing next to the small group of Malfoy’s; tallest was Mr. Malfoy and Jack could see why his mother liked him; he was very good looking with long blond hair and that strong jaw.

 

Next to him was a very thin, blond woman that seemed just as stuck-up as him; she was pretty, yes, but looked her age unlike Jack’s mother who only looked to be in her late 20’s if that.

 

And lastly was a teenager his own age who seemed to be in a very good mood at the moment; he was thin and had the same hair as his parents, only shorter and had the same blue eyes as the women.

 

Standing shakily, Jack brushed off the non-existent dust from his clothes and went over to stand next to his chatty mother on weak legs. He NEVER wanted to do that again! It was nearly as bad as being thrown about by the monks!

 

“Jack, I‘d like to introduce Mr. Lucius Malfoy, he’s a member of the Ministry’s council and his lovely wife Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy” she smiled, nudging her son forwards to greet them properly. Jack took a hesitant step towards them before shaking Lucius’ hand first before kissing the lady of the Manor’s hand.

 

“I-it’s a pleasure to meet you” he stated meekly, not looking Mr. Malfoy in the eyes; it was improper to look directly at a man who obviously demanded as much respect as him, it was the same as when talking to Chase; staring him directly in the eyes would obviously be stating a challenge for dominance and Jack wasn’t stupid as he seemed, this man was dangerous.

 

“The feelings mutual, Mr. Spicer. I've heard much about you from your mother” Lucius smiled smugly, yep; defiantly best to not to challenge him. “I would like you to meet my son” he stated push the teen closer to Jack, giving him a stern look.

 

The blond bowed slightly, frowning at the pushiness from his parents “Draco Malfoy, at your service”

 

“Ah!” Jack blushed lightly before copying Draco’s bow “J-Jack Spicer!” he squeaked in a rush, almost tripping over his own words.

 

The three adults shared a knowing smirk with each other which neither teen noticed.

 

* * *

 

After the introductions the adults Apparitated them the rest of the way, the feeling as though he was being sucked through a small tube made Jack want to throw-up but he managed to hold it back, reminding himself he’d been through worse, but amazingly it still put Floo-powder into his top 10 ways of travel in comparison.

 

Looking around, Jack found that they had arrived in a large, misty field; The redhead smiled as he heard his mother grumble a complaint about the moisture in the air would damage her hair and make it frizz. Standing not five feet away from them was a pair of grumpy looking wizards wearing muggles clothing, one holding a large gold watch and the other a thick roll of parchment and a quill. “Evening Gentlemen” Mr. Malfoy greeted them with an acknowledging nod.

 

“Evenin’ Mr. Malfoy” one stated as cheerfully as possible for a man almost dead on his feet “Hang on, I‘ll just find ya’ campsite... Malfoy…Malfoy…” he muttered, looking down at the parchment, saying the name over so he didn’t forget in his dazed state “It’s a fifteen-minute walk over that way” he waved a hand to his left boredly “First field ya’ come to; First class. Site manager‘s Ms. Alice Cron”

 

Nodding, Lucius offered his arms to the two women who he leads down the small dirt path with the two boys trailing behind. Jack couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the older male’s action; he must feel so smug with a lovely woman on each arm.

 

Looking over to the other teen, Jack took his appearance in a bit more. Yeah, he was cute and would be quite gorgeous when he got older, but overall seemed a bit posh for his taste’s, at least he had a slight ‘evil’ thing going on…well not evil, maybe a ‘bad-boy’ at most. Best start a conversation.

 

“Umm... Draco? What school house are you in?”

 

“Slytherin, what else?” he boasted proudly “Everyone in my family goes to Slytherin; rightful place for any pure-blood”

 

“I wonder what house I‘ll be placed in. From what I‘ve read I hope I‘m in Slytherin” Jack smiled “From what I hear all evil wizards came from that house and its mascot‘s a reptile! It has to be cool.” he nodded to himself.

 

“Well at least you‘ve got your priorities right” Draco smirked “If your not put in Slytherin it‘ll be a waste to your talents; if you want to get anywhere in life you‘d best be in with us snakes”

 

“Well, to tell you the truth I’m not really bothered where I‘m put as long as it's not Hufflepuff ” Jack stated scolding as he crossed his arms “I don’t even wanna know what Wuya would say if she ever got wind of it!”

 

“I agree, mate” Draco said, looking like he was about to laugh “I feel sorry for anyone who has ‘Puff’ as their group name, but it's better than the idiotic Gryffindor”

 

“Yeah, well, no worry‘s there for me” Jack blushed “I’m not ‘brave to the point of foolish’. I wouldn’t go running into danger if there was a choice to run the other way” he giggle, slightly embarrassed but honest all the same “But that ‘foolishly brave’ does describe a couple people I know”

 

After a few minutes of walking, through the mist Jack was able to make out a small cottage and behind it the ghostly figures of a couple hundred tents shielded from muggle prying eyes by a large, dense forest. Approaching the quaint cottage, Jack was able to see a small, brown-haired woman wearing a blue robe and holding a peace of neatly rolled parchment. Seeing them she grinned in, Jack opinion, an overly cheerful way. “Welcome! Lucy, I haven’t seen you in years!” she greeted them before hugging the model “When did you start coming back on the scene?”

 

“Since my little Jackie received his letter!” Lucy squealed in a girlish fashion while dragging Jack in front of her. Blushing at his mother's over-baring nature, Jack tried to squirm from her tight grip, suddenly feeling like some show-dog.

 

“Awww~! Isn’t he just Darling!” the woman squealed in an equally girly fashion to his mother. Jack’s eye twitched as he heard the Malfoy boy behind him snigger. “It's nice to meet you, Jackie. My names Angela Peggins; the sites co-manager and old friend of your mothers” she smiled pinching the small teen's cheek.

 

“It's just ‘Jack’ and it’s a pleasure to meet you” the Goth stated, pulling his face away from the witch’s hand.

 

Smiling Angela turned back to the adults of the small party “It is nice to see you all. You should count yourselves lucky; all the other campsites are owned by muggles” she sneered, pointing her nose in the air at the very idea.

 

“I am _so_ happy to be a privileged” Draco’s nose scrunched in a grimace “To think that if we were anything other than first class and we‘d have to _mingle_ with _Muggles_ ”. Jack couldn’t help the giggle that burst from his lips at seeing the cutely scrunched nose of the blond boy.

 

“What?” Draco frowned at the red-heads slightly demented giggle “Have I said something amusing to you?”

 

“N-not really” Jack sniggered, his giggle fit finally calming down as he smirked at the other teen “But that disgusted face you just pulled was just too cute!”

 

“C-Cute?!” Draco squeaked in disbelief. Him? Cute? It was an unbelievable thought and quite ironic coming from this skinny little pretty boy!

 

“Awww! Isn’t young love sweet!” Angela squealed excitedly, pinching both now red-faced boys cheeks.

 

“As ‘stimulating’ as this little chat is, shouldn’t we be heading off to our site” Narcissa snorted, becoming overly annoyed with the hyper woman “I wish to settle into our accommodations before the game begins”

 

“Of course!” Angela smiled cheerfully before releasing the thoroughly embarrassed teens and checking her parchment “Ohh! Lucky you! Your tent is directly beside Minister Fudge‘s!” she grinned, pointing down between a row of large tents “Just follow this path and you‘ll come to your accommodations”

 

“Thank you, Angela. I‘ll come to see you later” Lucy waved as she retook Lucius’ arm before he leads the group down the pathway.

 

“Detestable woman” Jack grunted, stomping down the road.

 

“Agreed” Draco nodded with a snort, walking beside the other, both of them rubbing the sore cheeks.

 


	4. Quidditch World Cup: part 2

  
_‘Aren’t we gonna be a little cramped in there’_ Jack wondered as the group reached a white silk tent that looked as though it would hold around two bedroom compartments and had a classy ribbon banner with ‘Malfoy’ stitched into it with silver thread. There was no way they could all fit in there while laying down, wasn’t this supposed to be First class?!

 

“What you waiting for?” Draco grunted, grabbing the albino’s arm and dragging him after their parents into the tent. Upon stepping inside, Jack couldn’t help but gasp in wonder, it was official, he loved this type of magic! Inside the small tent was a large sitting area with drapes tied open on each ’wall’ that seemed to be the entrances to three equally large bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen.

 

“Awesome! It‘s like the ‘TARDIS’!!” Jack cheered, bouncing on his heels excitedly, being his usual nerdy, science-fiction buff self.

 

“Tar- what?” Draco frowned at the Goth in utter confusion, while the adults simply ignored him, occupying themselves with settling into their ‘rooms’.

 

“The ‘TARDIS’, Time and relative dimension in space. Doctor Who‘s ship. It's bigger on the inside”

 

“Doctor who? Don’t you know his name or something?” the blond asked, still completely bewildered.

 

“That‘s not-” Jack began before looking over Draco’s blank face “Ya‘ know what, forget it as muggle-based nonsense” he waved off, not wanting to explain what ‘Doctor Who’ was, never mind Television.

 

“Alright boys, that’s enough chit-chat. Go chose a bunk” Lucy instructed, rolling her eyes at Jack’s enthusiasm as she gestured to the ‘room’ with the lavished bunk-bed in it while she fussed around her own room, adjusting everything just-so “I‘d like to get everything done so we can have a cup of tea before meeting the Minister”

 

‘Get everything ready?’ Jack wondered what really needed to be done since they hadn’t actually brought anything with them in the first place. Shrugging, the Goth followed behind Draco into their own room and threw himself down onto the bottom bunk and sprawling out in a lazy manner.

 

“…Aren’t you going to fight me for the top bunk?” Draco frowned in confusion, standing over the relaxed albino. He’d fully expected to fight tooth and nail for the top bunk, he’d heard from Daphne Greengrass that’s what she did with her sister whenever they took a trip and he’d just expected that was what he’d have to do with Jack.

 

“Nah” Jack waved a lazy hand at him “I‘ve got nothing against heights or anything; I just can't be bothered”

 

“…Are you always this lazy?”

 

“No. I’m usually very active, but the last week‘s been rather tiring with all the excitement about me being a wizard and all that” Jack shrugged before pulling himself out of the bed “So what’s there to do around this place?”

 

“Not an awful lot before the game, I’m afraid” Draco sighed, peering out of the curtain separating their room from the main living area, watching their parents settle down for a cup of tea “I would suggest a trip around the merchandise stalls, but I doubt there‘s enough time…”

 

“A cup of tea it is then” Jack grumbled, scrunching his nose as he approached the chatting adults.

 

* * *

  
The Quidditch pitch was amazing, according to Draco the gigantic stadium seated a hundred thousand patrons at any one time, the atmosphere alone nearly made up for the climb to the Top Box. Repeat; nearly.

 

Jack was the fist one to admit he wasn’t the fittest of guys, but this was ridiculous, by the time the Top Box came into clear view Jack felt about ready to faint. “Hate…Exercise!” Jack gasped desperately, using the railing to pull himself up the last couple steps “Need…Helipack!”

 

Draco rolled his eyes with a smirk at the shorter teens dramatic behaviour “If you think this is bad you’re never going to survive at Hogwarts”

 

Jack gave a pathetic groan at the thought as the group stopped just outside the Viewing box to compose themselves “Jackie, you be on your best behaviour tonight” Lucy ordered the Goth as she primped her hair once again, not that it needed it “I‘ve never met the Minister before and we need to make a good impression”

 

“Right…” Jack scoffed at the very idea of his mum not making a good impression, especially since the Prime Minister was a man; no man could resist anyone with an ounce of Veela blood in their veins.

 

As Jack watch his mother and Mrs. Malfoy link arms With Mr. Malfoy, ready to step into the box, Jack shrugged his shoulders and did the same with Draco, startling the taller teen. Glancing up at the other, Jack smirked at his widened eyes; he obviously hadn’t expected him to make such a bold move “Just sticking with the trend” he explained, waving his free hand at the adults linked arms as they stepped into the secure viewing area.

 

Entering the box themselves, Jack looked around at the high-quality seats, about twenty of them in two rows in the small box, but the amazing view from it definitely made up for the climb.

 

“What are _they_ doing here?” Draco sneered under his breath, bringing Jack’s attention away from the spectacular view.

 

“Huh?” the Goth blinked, following Draco’s line of sight to the group sitting on the front row. It was a group of about eight, six of them red-heads and Jack could tell they weren’t privileged just by the look of their clothes and the way they held themselves. So either Draco was very prejudice or he knew them personally.

 

“Ah, Fudge” Mr. Malfoy smiled pleasantly, shaking the Minister of Magic’s hand as they reached him “How are you? I don’t believe you’ve met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?”

 

“How do you do?” Fudge smiled, bowing at Mrs. Malfoy before turning to Jack and Lucy “And who might your charming guests be?”

 

“Lucy Spicer” Lucy smiled flirtatiously, holding her hand out delicately “It‘s a pleasure to meet you, Minister. This is my son, Jack”

 

“The pleasure's all mine” Fudge grinned smugly, taking Lucy’s hand with a low bow before turning back to Lucius and began introducing his other guests.

 

* * *

 

“Oh My God, did she just say _‘Spicer’_?!” Hermione whispered quietly in shock, making sure none of the adults heard and Ron nearly choked on his own spit.

 

“Wicked…” the twins grinned, eyeing the blond and her son dreamily.

 

“Bloody-Hell, I didn’t even know the Spicer‘s had a kid!” Ron hissed in surprise.

 

“Well of course not, Ron! They're a very private family! No-one knows when anything happens with them!” the brunette stated in a quiet ‘matter-of-fact’ way, crossing her arms as she peered around Mr. Weasley at the two.

 

“Who are the ‘Spicer’s?” Harry asked leaning closer to Hermione curiously, unable to take his eyes off the Spicer’s.

 

“Oh Harry, you really need to read more” Hermione muttered, giving him a disappointed look.

 

“The Spicer family are like the most well-known pure-bloods in the world! And they are well known to ‘mix’ with Veela‘s and their Wizarding descendants since the early 10th century” Ron whispered with a large grin on his face as he looked at Jack “Dad told me that the Spicer‘s were so paranoid that they made it so none of their kids who were Squid would ever inherit the Veela blood, which kept the bloodline ‘ _pure_ ’” Ron added, rolling his eyes “I never thought I‘d _see_ one, never mind two of them!”

 

* * *

  
Jack shifted uneasily at the tense atmosphere surrounding Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley, at least it confirmed his earlier assumption; there was obviously some hostility between the two families. Mr. Malfoy’s cold grey eyes swept over Mr. Weasley, and then up and down the row.

 

“Good Lord, Arthur” Lucius said softly “What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn’t have fetched this much?”

 

Draco smirked smugly at his father's wit and thankfully Fudge wasn’t listening or just oblivious since he turned to Mr. Weasley as if Lucius hadn’t said a word “Lucius has just given a very generous contribution to St Mungo‘s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur. He‘s here as my guest.”

 

“How…how nice” Mr. Weasly state with a strained smile that appeared more like a grimace to Jack.

 

Mr. Malfoy smirked at his obvious victory and took his seat along with his wife, Lucy and the boys.

 

As the Minister stood with his wand at his own throat, announcing the teams to the crowd, Jack leant closer to Draco with a confused expression “So… Who are we rooting for?”

 

* * *

 

“My, my. That Krum boy sure is a brave one” Lucy grinned, fanning herself with her tasselled programme as the group exited the arena and headed towards their tent. “That was exciting, right, Honey?”

 

“…I almost had a heart attack” Jack muttered, he'd been so tense during the game that he'd still been gripping the arms of his seat in a death-grip long after it had ended, before bursting into hysterical giggles “It was awesome!”

 

“I know, right?” Draco grinned excitedly “The was Krum tricked Lynch into crashing was brilliant!”

 

“And the way the Veela‘s attacked the leprechauns?!” Jack added before turning to his mother in hopeful glee “Will I be able to throw fire and get wings one day?! Can you throw fireballs, Mum?!”

 

“No, Sweetie!” Lucy giggled, pushing the boys into their tent while the elder Malfoy’s said good-night to the Minister “Only Full-Veelas’ can transform into their natural forms and control the elements”

 

“That sucks…” Jack sulked as he dropped back into his bed, listening to the sounds of the celebrating crowds outside “I could always just build a flame-thrower, I guess”

 

“What are you on about?” Draco asked with a confused look as her climbed the ladder to his own bed “Why not just learn a fire-conjuring spell? Professor Flitwick probably knows dozens”

 

Jack hadn’t thought of that, his natural instinct was to find solutions to his problems with technology still. It was obviously going to take more than a couple weeks to start thinking like a Wizard and not a Muggle like he was used to “I don’t know… It kinda seems like cheating if I solve all my problems with magic. I always work so hard on my tech‘ so resorting to waving my wand and learning a Latin word instead kinda seems like a cop-out”

 

“Learning spells isn’t that easy” Draco scolded, leaning over the railing of his bunk to look down at Jack “It‘s not just waving your wand and saying a spell. You have to understand the magical theory behind the spell first, AND there‘s differing wand waving techniques!”

 

“I guess I‘ll find out once I actually start studying” Jack yawned tiredly before turning over and getting comfortable “Night...”

 

“Yeah, G‘night” Draco scoffed, rolling his eyes before flopping back onto his own bed, listening as the adults finally entered the tent and headed to their own sleeping areas before closing his eyes and falling asleep himself.

 


	5. Boring and Semi-Pointless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack gets ready to head to England

 

* * *

 

  

It had been about a month since Jack had received the Hogwarts invitation and at the moment was busy studying ‘History of Magic’ in his family’s library, trying to do a little more catching up on his studies before the new school year began.

 

So far his life as a wizard was turning out better than his ‘normal’ one; true it wasn’t as exciting, but the Quidditch World-Cup his mother and him were invited to by the Malfoy’s was quite interesting with the way most of the lower-class’ tents and fields had getting set on fire by some Dark wizard supporters. He was most grateful they were in First-class that had better protection and a great view of the carnage!

 

He and Draco had a blast watching the whole place go up in flames, he may not be evil anymore but that hadn’t changed his love and habit for laughing his ass off at others misery. That much was evident in his movie collection. But unfortunately since the fire and his mother demanded he go study his school books and learn as many protection spells and charm as possible. She’d become even more protective and paranoid about his safety than ever!

 

It had been a couple weeks since he had gotten his new books that he needed for the school year and had started studying them, trying to catch up on the work he had missed. He’d already finished reading all the books up to year 7 and that wasn’t even counting the new non-school books he’d gotten his hands on, he hoped he could perform them all when the time came and not just be stuck with just the theory. That was the only reason he failed gym in high school, he could pass if it wasn’t a practical class and it wouldn’t have left a black mark on his perfect grade-sheet when he graduated at 13. But thankfully no-one could doubt his genius when it came to paper-based learning!

 

At the moment Jack was re-reading the whole of year 4 to see if he had missed something. It had really surprised him how easy he took to magic! He understood it better than even robotics! Jack may be crap at fighting hand to hand, but if there was one thing he could do, it was memorising anything he read, saw or was told! Thanks to his photographic and eidetic memory he would very well become a very powerful wizard one day! Take that, Wuya!

 

Sighing, Jack chucked the thick book onto one of the library’s tables, stretching his stiff joints as he climbed from the comfy chair he’d been lounging in. _‘Reading for 6 hours at a time was really a bad idea’_ Jack concluded with a groan and he heard his shoulder-blades ’pop’. Groaning even louder as he checked the clock and saw how late it was. He had to be up early in the morning to get to England at a decent time tomorrow! And he had to have a bath!

 

Scolding himself mentally, Jack quickly sent orders to one of his Jack-bots to run a bath for him via his bot-control-watch before sprinting down to his bedroom in the basement to grab a pair of clean boxers and a towel.

 

Stepping into the joined bathroom with a massive Jacuzzi/Bath that any other teen would literally kill for, Jack stripped clumsily and waved-off the Jack-bot who’d run his bath before practically dive-bombing into the warm water.

 

“Uahhh!” he moaned happily at the feeling; nice warm baths’ were perfect for sore muscles after sitting hunched over books for so long! Enjoying the feel of the water, Jack leant back and relaxed against the side of the tub, it wasn’t like he needed to wash his hair or anything since he’d had a shower that morning, but it was more to get the sweat from the long day off of him for his long trip tomorrow. There’s nothing worse than flying long distance while smelling of day-old sweat.

 

But the time to relax for the first time all day also gave the Goth time to think about things he’d rather avoid, like the two things he found wrong with his new non-evil life: it was brain-dead BORING most of the time and second… he missed Chase.

 

The red-head gave another long sigh, not wanting to think about the warlord he quickly distracted himself with quickly rinsing his pale skin of soap, gazing down at the bubble filled bath-water, closing his eyes as he sunk back down in the tub. He wondered what those Xiaolin losers were up to since he stopped going to the showdowns.

 

“Humph! Probably hadn’t noticed I stopped going or just don’t care that I’m not, knowing them” he muttered, his mouth just above the water. He look at the other occupant of the bath and smile, his hand surfaced and he pocked his Gothic rubber-duck making it, instead of squeaking, laugh evilly ‘Muhahahahahaha!’ making the albino giggle like a school-girl in amusement “That always makes me happy” he muttered, pulling out the plug, getting out the bath and dried himself.

 

“Yes-Bot!” Jack called, drying his hair. Moments later the bot flow into the room, creepy smile on its ‘face’.

 

 ** _“Yes, Jack!?”_** Yes-Bot asked in his ever creepy/happy way.

 

“I’m leaving tomorrow to go to England so go you pack my things” Jack ordered in a muffled voice as it came through the towel.

 

 ** _“Okay, Jackie boy! Should I pack your Heli-pack, jet-boots and your plushy?!”_** Yes-bot asked happily, flying up to the teen and started to help dry the red hair.

 

Jack pushed the robot away, Yes-bot was always too touchy-feely, before putting the towel down and shook his head “No. I‘ll be wearing the pack and boots, and as for my plushy, I‘m gonna need it tonight and put it in my Heli-pack tomorrow” he said, walking past the bot and into his room, towards his wardrobe.

 

 ** _“Sure thing, sport!”_** the bot squealed before fleeing the room.

 

The little Goth yawned and pulled on some cherry-printed shorts that were so short they nearly showed the bottom of his butt-cheeks and a long, baggy night top that looked a bit like a jumper(1), then climbed into bed and cuddled up to his ‘Chase’ plushy which looked a lot like the really Chase but much cuter “G‘night, Chase” he muttered, snuggling thither into the quilt and fell asleep.

 

 

* * *

 

\-- _Earlier that day_.

 

“Collecting Shen-Gong-Wu isn’t fun anymore” Rai muttered, inspecting the new Wu lazily as they flew back to the Temple on Dojo’s scaled hide “When was the last time we had a Showdown?”.

 

“I don’t know. About a month ago? Maybe…” Kimiko sighed, leaning on the smaller yellow monk, in front of her, arms crossed over his round head.

 

“Why isn’t Jack around anymore? I‘m BORED!” Rai whined, tossing the Wu to Clay in a tantrum-like manner.

 

“He‘s probably still sulking like a little kid, I say he‘ll be at the next Showdown, Jack-bots and all” Kimiko ensured the other teen as she spotted the temple.

 

If she only knew…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) if you want to know what it looks like check-out ‘brokendeathangel’ s ’Curious’ picture on Deviant art.  
> If you wanna see the chase plushy go to ‘brokendeathangel‘ s ‘SelamatPagiSelamatMalam’.


	6. Diagon Alley

 

It was mid afternoon by the time the albino teen landed in a wide ally-way in London, his Heli-pack folded into its self, making it look like a normal Gothic backpack, waiting a couple seconds to get his land legs back after such a long journey Jack headed out the dingy alley and down the brightly lit streets of England’s capital, his suitcase‘s wheels grinding loudly behind him as he pulled it along quickly. Deciding that morning that he wanted to make an impression on the wizarding community, he was now dressed in his jet-boots, a pair of black baggy low-hanging jeans, a red sleeveless top with a black skull printed on the front and leather fingerless gloves on his small hands. Red and black striped arm-guards covered his lower arms, his nails painted black and his eyeliner was neatly painted in place below his eyes, his goggles snugly placed on his hairline as usual. He was also wearing a studded dog collar around his neck, but the teen had decided to forgo hair gel that morning also and now it lay flat against his head, reaching his shoulders(1), making him look more girly than normal due to his veela-looks.

 

Glancing around the area that his mother had directed him too, Jack spotted his destination and made his way into an old, shabby-looking pub. Above the door was a sigh which said: Leaky Cauldron.

 

The Leaky Cauldron? Yep, that described the joint perfectly. Why couldn’t he just stay at a muggle 5-star hotel?!

 

Making his way up to the old, chipped wooden bar, Jack ignored all the curious looks he was getting from the bar’s occupants as he walked past and got the attention of the middle-aged looking bartender “Could I get a room for the night?” he asked, his English slightly choppy from not being used since he’d learned the language, his accent a little too heavy for his liking as he leaning over the bar and pulling out the unusual money his mom gave him.

 

The bartender nodded and handed him a key “Ahh…room 12, second floor” he said, taking the money, slightly unsure if the foreign young man could even understand him.  
Frowning at the British man’s over exaggeration of his words, Jack didn’t understand why people thought if you spoke louder foreigners would suddenly understand their language. It was an idiotic notion.

 

Shaking his head at the utter stupidity, Jack went and took his things with him up to the room, his case dragging against the wooden floor behind him. When he saw the room he was not impressed in the slightest; it had an old four-poster bed with a well-used, squeaky mattress and cheap, thin sheets. There was a small, dirty window with moth-eaten curtains and the floor was made of old, squeaky wood.

 

After less then a minute looking around, Jack quickly tossed his trunk on the bed and just as quickly left the room and back down to the bar. Not wanting to spend any longer in the dirty little hobble of a hotel room.

 

“Umm... Sir? Where‘s Diagon Alley?” the Goth asked the bartender who smiled down at him.

 

“It's outback, I‘ll take you there” he said, stressing his words once more as he comes out from behind the bar and headed out the back door too, what looked like, a blocked-off alley-way. The elder Wizard pulled out his wand and tapped a couple of bricks on the white wall, making them fold in on themselves, making an archway.

 

Jack stood there, wide-eyed and slack-jaw; staring at all the colourful stores, noisy animals and people walking around wearing funny, pointed hats and robes. There were busy stalls and shops full of people, they were selling all kinds of strange and unusual things. He had not been expecting _that_! “Thanks, Dude!” Jack cheered happily before running off down the colourful street.

 

“Ya‘ welcome kid! And the names TOM!” Tom yelled after the teen as he disappeared into the crowd of people.

 

Slowing down from his excited jog to a quick paced walk, Jack pulled out a list of things he needed for the school year, which he had gotten with his Hogwarts letter, he’d already gotten all the books he needed so he didn’t need to go to the book shop.

 

 _A Wand._  
_School Robs, a pair of formal robes, one pointed hat and a pair of gloves._  
_One medium sized cauldron._  
_Potion ingredient. (I‘m not going to write ever ingredient; too lazy)_  
_Broomstick is optional._  
_And if student wishes they may have a pet, either a cat, an owl, a toad or a rat._

 

“I guess I‘ll get the first thing on the list: a wand” the albino muttered to himself, shoving the list into his pocket and looked for the wand shop, his mother told him to go to ‘Ollivander’s’. Noticing a tall shop with a sign saying ‘Ollivander’s, makers of the finest wands’.

 

“Well that was easy” the Goth smiled and made his way through the crowds into the quiet shop to see no-one was behind the counter “Um? Hello?” he called hearing something clattering around in the back of the shop.

 

An old man came out from the back, holding a couple of thin boxes “Yes, young man? How can I help you?” he asked putting the boxes down on the counter.

 

“Ahh... I‘m here for a wand” the Goth squeaked out.

 

“Alright. Hold out your wand hand, please”

 

“Um. Do you mean my dominant hand?”

 

“Yes, yes. Now hold out your hand” Ollivander said, getting impatient with the young genius. Jack extended his right arm, but quickly pulled back with a girly squeal as a tape-measure started measuring his hand on its own, floating in midair. After a skittish moment, he held out his hand again. Once the tape-measure finished Ollivander went into the back again and re-emerged with an arm-full of those boxes.

 

“13 inches, bloodwood and unicorn hair core” he stated as he handed the wand to the teen, but quickly snatched it away muttering ‘No, no, no, that won't do’.  
After about the 20th wand Ollivander sighed and looked the boy over “Can you tell me a little about yourself, Mr..?”

 

“Jack Spicer, I‘m a scientist and am a pure-blood…I think, does having diluted Veela blood count?” Jack frowned, thinking over the subject; the Malfoy’s didn’t seem to mind, they even seemed to think it a good thing.

 

Ollivander nodded, ignoring the teens question and headed to get another box “Yes, this should help; the Spicer’s is a very old family, they originally came from France, but most of them moved to China in the early 18th century, they are very rich and well known because they were the first humans, wizard and muggle alike, to breed with the Veela‘s” he stated as he came back out from the back of the shop towards the teen, box in hand.

 

“I can see the Veela in you” Ollivander nodded, making the albino blush as he was looked over “17 inches, inflexible, made from the fang of a Horntail Dragon, fragment of a Veela‘s wing bone core”

 

Jack took the polished white wand and gave it a wave, as soon as he moved the wand a burst of light came streaming out. “Well now, that‘s not something you see everyday” Ollivander said, looking the Goth over “I haven’t seen such a reaction since Harry Potter. This wand will serve you well”

 

After paying for his wand, Jack made his way out of the shop and away from the creepy old man as he headed over to a robe shop named ‘Madam Malkin’s Robes for all Occasions’, he actually liked his school robes because he could wear all black without people thinking he was weird, but he didn’t like the lady ‘Madam Malkim’; she made him buy at least 3 pairs red and crimson dress-robes, she said they made his ‘gorgeous’ eyes stand out. At least nothing happened to him in the Cauldron Shop… well, Okay! A stack of cauldrons did fall on him, but after that nothing happened…well that’s not true, in the potions shop he did get a potion dumped on him and his hair had changed; turned black which made his already white skin look even paler, if that’s possible, and had grown down to his waist, the lady in the shop said it would wear off by tomorrow.

 

So now Jack was sitting in Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour eating a cone of blueberry ice-cream, reading the latest ‘Daily Prophet’s article on the disaster at the Quidditch world cup, trying to calm his nerves and work out what the reporter had been smoking while writing the article, whoever this reporter was they needed to actually investigate and stop making up fanciful tales of conspiracy and prejudice. Rolling his eyes and with a long sigh, Jack decided he’d had enough and headed towards ‘Magical Menagerie’ a pet shop. It wasn’t like he needed a pet, but some company would be appreciated now he didn’t have his Jack-bots with him.

 

Entering the large shop, Jack quickly skipped the toads and rats section with a shudder and headed for the owls and cats. He never got along with birds and really didn’t like owls, for one reason: their eyes, they were always staring with those big evil eyes and they look like they have no soul, but not just that; it’s the spinning head thing too, It's Creepy!

 

So that left one option: a cat, so the albino looked in each and every cage but didn’t see any that liked: most of them were hyper kittens and the others were obviously the clingy sort as they started rubbing up against the bar’s as he walked past and the ones that weren’t hyper or super clingy were just butt ugly!

 

Jack was about to give-up when a pair of half-lidded amber eyes court his attention, making his way over to the cage the short Goth saw a midnight-black furred cat that looked young but not a kitten, it had a bored look on its face like it didn’t care that Jack was looking at it, like Jack wasn’t worth its time. It was sitting-up-straight, head up high and its long fluffy tail curled around its legs, making it look like the royal family should own it. Or it owning the royal family…

 

Even if it looked stuck-up, Jack couldn’t help but smile. It was just like Chase, from its looks to its attitude and it made him realise how much he was missed Chase. Maybe this little guy could help with that...

 

Jack turned to the counter “Hey, Miss! How much for this cat?” he asked, getting the shop’s owner’s attention, she walked over and looked at the cat in question.

 

“You can have him for 33 knots” she said, getting the keys to the cage out.

 

“Why are you selling him so cheap?!” asked the shocked albino.

 

“Well it's not a kitten, it's also not a loving cat and it has a bad attitude. Are you sure you want it?”

 

Jack looked back at the cat who was now staring back at him, one look in those half-lidded golden eyes and Jack couldn’t help but note “Yeah, I want that cat”.

 

The woman unlocked the cage with a shrug “I don’t see why…” she said, opening the cage door.

 

“It reminds me of someone” the Goth said, looking the cat in the eyes “Do you wanna come live with me and save your pride or stay here and have your price knocked down to an embarrassing number?” he asked the golden-eyed cat, putting his hand out to it, knowing that if the cat was really like Chase it wouldn’t stand to lose any more pride.

 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you! It bites!” the lady yelled, but was cut short as the cat ignored the outstretched hand and leapt onto the teen’s shoulder and just sat there like it did in its cage.

 

“H-how? What? Why didn’t it bite you?!” the woman asked, stuttered.

 

The albino smiled at her and looked up at the cat “It's like I said: he reminds me of someone. So I know how he expects to be treated: in charge, respected and obeyed, so I asked him if he wanted to come with me and he made his own choice” he said, going over to have a look at cat-collars. The woman just shook her head and went back to the counter to serve another customer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)= Deviant art , Brokendeathangel , hair gel - check it out, its well cute!


	7. Where’s Spicer?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Monks visit the Spicer residence.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a warm and sunny at the Xiaolin Temple and the four Xiaolin Dragons had just returned from retrieving another Shen-Gong-Wu with bored looks on all their faces, they were heading towards the volt when Raimundo couldn’t take it anymore “Where the Hell is Jack?! I mean we haven’t seen him in over a month! And the only Showdown we've done since was when Chase Young showed up when he was bored and we get our butts whooped!” he yelled in frustration, making the others jump.

 

“Jack Spicer may be plotting a scheme of evil!” Omi announced, one arm pointed in the air.

 

“That’s ‘Evil Plot’, Omi”

 

“That Too!” the bold monk said grinning.

 

“I think we better be seein’ what the little runts up ta’ ” Clay said, tilting his cowboy hat.

 

“Yeah! We‘re on the way to the Volt anyway, so let's grab the Golden-Tiger-Claws or the 'GTC' for short, and Shroud of Shadows and head of to the freaks house” Rai grinned, heading down the stairs to the Volt.

 

* * *

 

Using the GTC, the four monks teleported into Jacks lab and using Shroud of Shadows to not set off any alarms, but to their surprise, there was only one Jack-bot visible and it was in pieces on the worktable, surrounded by tools that had been left out. The rest were all neatly stacked in a corner deactivated.

 

There was no weapons of mass destruction, just arms and legs that looked as though they belonged to a robot and chemicals in sealed glass cases with labels under them.

 

Taking of the Shroud of Shadows the monks curiously walked around, looking in awe at the room; no longer dark and creepy basement filled with junk, but a scientist’s laboratory with white walls, floors and bright lights and everything a creepy ‘Evil Lear’ was not.

 

As they walked around, Kimiko stopped in front of the glass case full of chemicals, in shock after reading the labels “Oh MY GOD! He has the cure for the common cold! And is working on the cure for... CANCER!?!?!?!?” she screeched.

 

“Hey, Guys! I found a note!” Rai yelled from near a large computer, holding up a sheet of paper. Once the others came over, Rai began to read aloud;

 

 

_-“Dear Xiaolin-Losers, Chase or Witch-Bitch_

 

_If you are reading this, it means you were wondering where I was(I doubt it) or you came to steal my Shen-Gong-Wu(most likely), well sorry to disappoint you. but neither I or my Wu are there at home or even in China at the moment._

_I’m attending a privet boarding school in Scotland for the gifted; Hogwarts, and have taken the Wu with me._

_And to the Xiaolin Losers: you don’t have to worry about seeing me at a Showdown ever again, cause I have given up on taking over the world and being Heylin. AND before the Cheese-ball even THINKS I’m on his Xiaolin-side, I’m **NOT**! I‘m just a normal teenager! No more Showdowns! No more plan‘s for work-domination and no more Kung-Fu Crazy, Monks with Super-Powers!_

_And to prove I‘m serious, I've sold all my defensive Jack-bots and weapons to the government and I have started building things to help humanity, like cures for deadly illnesses, better prosthetics and stuff like that, for the money and fame obviously, not because I turned ‘Good’ or anything. So. Leave. Me. Alone!_

 

_Jack. V. Spicer”-_

 

 

“……”

 

“Wow…” Kim muttered, breaking the silence.

 

“I wonder why he gave up on his dream of world domination” Rai said, mostly to himself.

 

“Jack Spicer did seem to be set-down at the last showdown when we left” Omi said, looking depressed.

 

“He was ‘ _up-set_ ’, Omi” the currently purple haired teen corrected him, reading the note again.

 

“Oh-Nelly, I feel sorry for callin’ the little fella’ a brat now” Clay muttered, feeling guilty.

 

“We should go to the School of gifted-privet and tell Jack Spicer we are most sorry!” Omi announced, cheering up a bit until Rai shook his head.

 

“It’s a _‘Privet School of the Gifted’_ and the note only said that it was in Scotland, and there are a lot of Privet Schools in Scotland” he said, putting the note back on the desk.

 

Seeing Omi’s sad face, Kimiko tried to cheer him up “Don’t feel bad, Omi, you never called him a bad name so you don’t have to say sorry to him” this, however, didn’t help.

 

“But I‘m a Xiaolin warrior! I should have defended him or told you to stop! Jack Spicer is weak and defenceless so it's our jobs to protect and defend him!” the 12-year-old said, looking as though he was about to cry.

 

“Ah-Ha! I know! We can come back at Christmas, it’s a boarding school so Jack won't be home until then” Kim said happily, putting her hands on her hips.

 

“We better‘s be gettin’ back before Master Fung see‘s we‘re not there” Clay said, tilting his hat again.

 

 


	8. Toads, EeeeK!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the Hogwarts Express and meeting Neville.

**Cats POV:**

 

It was cold and my human, Jack, was still sitting next to a window on some train, jotting down notes in his notepad and looked to be deep in thought, his nose kept scrunching up cutely, showing that he was concentrating.

 

His hair had changed since I first made him my pet; it used to belong and midnight-black like mine, but now it's shoulder-length and bright-red, not ginger, RED, blood-red just like his eyes. I like it much better now: black hair makes his skin look paler if that’s even possible. His name is Jack Spicer, I don’t like it all that much; it's too common, but I’m glad he gave me a name no other feline would possess: Dragon. I’m not sure why he named me something like that, but I don’t care, really.

 

He’s surprisingly smart for a human, although not brave at all. All I have to do is jump on his lap when he’s reading and he’ll leap about 5 feet in the air, screaming like a small, female human. It is actually very amusing.

 

The only thing I’m not happy about is when he talks about some guy called ‘Chase’, how ‘cool’ he is and how he was his ‘Idol’, but the thing that really took the biscuit was when my little Goth said that _ **I**_ reminded him of _**CHASE!**_

 

This Chase guy can’t have MY pet! He’s _**MY**_ human and only Mine! I know I’m possessive, but I’m NEVER going to be second best!

 

Deciding to mark my territory once again, I get up and leap onto Jack’s lap and lay down, making him jump and yelp in surprise. _Hm!_ my human’s so entertaining! I think I’ll have a cat-nap until we get to where-ever we’re going, seeing as he’s not doing anything else to entertain at the moment.

* * *

 

**\--Normal POV:**

 

It was around 5:00 pm and Jack had been working on inventing his own Charms and Defensive spells, well, the theories behind them. It was something new and different, he was getting the same feeling as when he built his first Jack-bot or his time-machine _(before it was destroyed)_.

 

He was basing most of his Spells and Charms on the known Shen-Gong-Wu, like the ‘Eye of Dashi’ were he would yell ‘Dasheyi’ and the thing he cast the spell on would gain unlimited power, like if he used it on the ‘Monkey Staff’ he would turn into the form of a complete monkey and not just have the similar appearance, strength, agility and balance of one, but the spell was only temporary like most of his personally made spells and charms. Jack was really proud of himself: at the rate he was working he would have spells that did all the same things as all the Shen-Gong-Wu that he knew about. If he could get any of them to work that is.

 

Sighing and putting his notepad down, Jack looked at his watch and saw how late it was. Picking up the sleeping ‘Dragon’ and laying him on the seat next to him, the albino stood up and pulled out his uniform which was the size of a grain of rice, from his pocket and used the ‘Changing Chopsticks’ to turn them back to their normal size and began to change.

 

Jack was busy buttoning up his shirt when he felt something slimy touch his left foot, looking down the little Goth was greeted with the sight of a slimy green toad sitting on his foot, staring up at him. Letting out a high-pitched scream, leaping up onto his seat making the slime-ball jump off his foot onto the floor. The bounce of him jumping on the seat woke Dragon up in alarm.

 

Moments later a teen with curly/wavy dark-brown hair came rushing into the compartment, he had slightly large front teeth and was slightly larger frame than a normal teen and was wearing a Gryffindor school uniform.

 

* * *

 

**\--Neville’s POV:**

 

I had been walking around the train for over an hour now looking for Trevor, he had been running away a lot ever since I got him and to tell you the truth: it's starting to piss me off. I had nearly convinced myself to just go back to my compartment when I heard a high-pitched screech, acting on instinct I ran to the compartment where I had heard the screaming come from and not away from it like I usually would before rushed in, upon which I stopped dead in my tracks; staring at the exquisitely beautiful creature before me.

 

Long slender legs, slim and narrow waist with slight curves, small shoulders, long agile arms attached to small girly hands which were clasped together against a flat chest and a long thin neck which went up to a roundish childish but beautiful face; cherry-lips, cute little nose, big innocent blood-red eyes surrounded by thick long black eyelashes and shoulder-length flame-red hair which surrounded the snow-white face and all of this was wrapped up in a fragile-lithe frame.

 

The beauty of this being was breath-taking and the fact that it was only dressed in a baggy thigh length button-up shirt, showing off a lot of pale-white skin. It took all my might to look away to where the beauty was looking.

 

* * *

 

**\--Normal POV:**

 

“Trevor!?” Neville yelled, sweeping the toad up into his hand as he looked back up at Jack with a nervous smile “I-I-I‘m sorry i-if he scared you, h-he runs away a-all the time” he said, unable to control his nervous stuttering “I‘m Neville Longbottom”

 

Jack (fake) coughed trying to cover up his embarrassment at the way he reacted “It didn’t _Scare_ me! It just... surprised me, that’s all” he said, pouting childishly, jumping down off the seat, giving Neville a good look at his love-heart printed boxers which could be mistaken for short-shorts without noticing, which made Neville turned three shades darker red then the Goths hair “And the names Jack Spicer” he said, flicking some hair out his face without realising how  hot it made him look.

 

“Spicer?! Aren’t they the most well-known pure-blood family in all the wizarding world?! More well-known than the Malfoy‘s!?” Neville yelled, so shocked he nearly dropped Trevor.

 

Jack looked up at him while pulling on his trousers “I only found out I was a wizard just over a month ago so I don’t know much about stuff like that, but I do know that my family came from France” he muttered, slipping on his shoes “We were the first to cross breed with Veela‘s and that there has been a load of them in family”

 

Neville nodded at that, realising that was why he’d found Jack so attractive.

 

“From what mom‘s told me, the last one in the family was my grandmother, mum said she was a Veela and that it is incredibly rare for a male to inherit the Veela traits or whatever” he said, finishing getting dressed.

 

Neville really didn’t know how to respond to that so he decided not to and changed the subject “Um…w-what house are y-you in Jack?”

 

“I don’t know yet, they're going to sort me when I get there” the small teen said as he sat down and put Dragon on his lap who was giving Neville and his toad the evilest look, eyeing him as he sat down opposite to the albino. Jack looked out the window of the compartment and saw it was dark out. Neville, seeing him look out the window copied and looked out too.

 

It's getting dark, we‘ll be there soon”

 

 


	9. Sort Yourself Out!

 

When Jack got off the train he left all his things on it including Dragon and his Wu, he got on a carriage with Neville. The ride was much too bumpy for Jack’s taste, but luckily the trip was short, the fake that it was a seemingly horseless carriage slightly impressed the Goth, making up for the uncomfortable ride. Upon stepping out of the carriage they got a good look at a group of white horses with wings, pulling a red and gold carriage through the air; flying towards the castle. “Pegasus..” the Goth muttered in awe, cranking his neck in a weird position to get an even better look.

 

Hearing a thundering sound crashing water the two quickly swerved around to looking towards the lake just as a large, old-fashioned ship, almost like a pirate ship, rising out of the deep waters. “Does this happen every year?” the small teen asked, turning to look at the nervous one.

 

“N-no. But something stranger a-always happens at least once a year.” Neville states, staring at the ship.

 

“Jack Spicer?! Mr. Spicer!?” a shrill voice yelled; startling the two teens and others around them. They turned to see an old witch in a green robe and pointed hat. She had a stern face and didn’t look at all friendly or welcoming to Jack.

 

The small redhead slowly made his way over to her hesitantly “Yes, Mrs?”.

 

“Jack Spicer?” she asked as he came to a stop in front of her. The albino answered with a nervous node.

 

“Good evening, Mr. Spicer. I am Professor McGonagall. This way, you‘ll be sorted with the First-years. Follow me.” she said before walking off towards where everyone else had headed off to before she had yelled for him. Glancing back, Jack gave a short wave to Neville before scurrying after her into the castle.

 

She came to a stop in front of a bunch of small children, about 11 years old who were standing before a large pair of wooden doors.

 

Jack hung back, standing slightly away from the cluster of chatting kids, it was bad enough being new, but to be sorted with a bunch of kids? Great...

 

“Quiet! Good, now when the doors open, I want you to come in _silently_ in a line of two. Then wait in a group at the front of the hall and wait for instruction.” McGonagall stated before leaving; walking through the large doors.

 

A couple of moments later the doors opened slowly in for dramatic effect which Jack rolled his eyes at before the group did as they were told; walked through the doors into the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall was standing next to a stool at the head of the hall. The stool had a dirty old hat sat on top.

 

“When I call your name, you will come up and sit on the stool. I will then place the sorting hat upon your head and you will be sorted into your houses” she stated sternly without room for argument before she began reading out the names.

 

Jack was happy his name was going to be one of the last one’s to be read-out. He had read about the sorting hat in _‘Hogwarts a History’_ and didn’t like the idea of it having a rummage around in his thoughts and memories. But she completely skipped him, but he knew she had not forgotten about him, after-all it was heard not to notice him; he was nearly a head taller than the first-years!

 

After all the first-years were sorted an old man with a long beard stood up from behind the teachers' table, Jack suspected he was the guy was Headmaster Dumbledore he had read about, seeing as he was in the middle of the teachers' table and his chair was the tallest.

 

“Now all the first-years have been sorted, I would like to announce we have a new student who will be starting with our fourth-years. It is a great pleaser to introduces to you; Mr. Jack Spicer!”

 

As soon as the words left the Headmaster's mouth the hall was alive with whispers.

 

Jack skittishly made his way up to McGonagall and sat on the old stool, before the hat was placed on his head.

 

 _‘Well this is interesting’_ a voice said in the back of the Goths head making him yelp, which he scolded himself for; he should have been expecting that. _‘Well your defiantly not going Gryffindor’_ the voice came again.

 

 _‘Hay! I know what you're implying! And I’m not a wimp!’_ Jack yelled in his head at the voice, knowing it was saying he was a coward.

 

_‘Wait! What’s this?! You’ve met Chase Young and Hannibal Roy Bean!?!? When did they come back!?!?!?’_

 

_'Weelll~ Chase showed up about a year back and the Bean-from-Hell came about half a year ago, he only wants the Shen-Gong-Wu so he can take over the world’_

 

_‘ WHAT?!?!’_

 

_‘Oh stop over reacting you old moth-collector. The Bean wants the world and Chase ain't gonna just hand it over, is he? So stop worrying, Chase can kick that stupid fruit wannabe's ass!’_

 

_‘And what of Chase Young the immortal Dragon Lord?’_

 

 _‘He’s hanging around’_ the Goth thought with a dreamy look on his face _‘Umm... Shouldn’t you be sorting me?’_

 

_‘Yes, yes. Now let's see. Not brave enough for Gryffindor, not cunning or even evil enough for Slytherin.’_

 

_‘A couple of months back I would have yelled at you for that’_

 

_‘And after seeing your memories I know your not loyal or trustworthy to be in Hufflepuff-’_

 

_‘Oh, Come On! I only betrayed those Xiaolin losers! And they’ve been picking on me for almost four years!’_

 

_‘ I’m not even going to respect that comment with an explanation to why they were ‘picking on you’ as you so plainly put it. Anyway seeing as your hard working(when your interested) and a genius, I’ll put you in-’_

 

**“Ravenclaw!!!”**

 


	10. Pretty Girls and Handsome Boys

 

Huffing in annoyance, Jack stood up and handed the hat to a waiting McGonagall, then headed towards an empty seat next to a girl who looked full Chinese unlike him who was only half.

 

“Hello, I‘m Cho Chang” she said in a sickly-sweet voice and smile on her face.

 

“Nice to meet you” Jack lied, forcing a smile on his face, he hated people who acted too happy. It just wasn’t natural.

 

“Do you know goggles and eyeliner look _sooo_ cute on you! How‘d you pull that look off?” she asked, leaning closer. “That eyeliner-hook makes your pretty red-eyes stand-out more” she added, dreamily. Leaning in more so their noses only inches away from touching. Her half-lidded eyes glassing dreamily into his wide scarlet ones.

 

_‘AHHH! A GIRL Is Flirting With ME!! GROSS! Why couldn’t stuff like this happen when I still thought I was straight!?’_

 

“Well, now we‘re all settled in and sorted, I‘d like to make an announcement,” Dumbledore said, unknowingly saving Jack from his fate. “This castle will not only be your home this year but home to some very special guests as well. You see, Hogwarts has been chosen to host a legendary event: The Triwizard Tournament!” Dumbledore stated, making the hall become an uproar with whispers.

 

“For those of you who do not know: The Triwizard Tournament brings together three schools, for a series of magical contests. From each school, a single student is selected to compete. Now let me be clear. If chosen, you stand alone. And trust me when I say…These contests are not for the faint-hearted” he warned the eager students.

 

“But more of that later. For now, please join me in welcoming, the lovely ladies of the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic!” he announced, gesturing to the large doors as they opened, revealing five rows of beautiful girls dressed in sky-blue French school-uniforms as they skipped down the middle of the hall “…and their Headmistress; Madam Maxime” Dumbledore said as the French-students skipped down the middle of the Hall, once they made it to the front of the hall they let out a loud sigh and magic butterfly’s fluttered around them.

 

A woman with dark-brown hair cut in a bob, wearing a reddish coat with a fur collar and was about three times taller than any normal adult woman followed behind the girls, nodding politely to the students.

 

Once all of the French beauties made it to the front of the Great-hall they bowed and that’s when Jack noticed two familiar blond girls at the front; one was wearing a uniform like the others and the other, younger girl, younger than Jack by a year or two was wearing a strange white outfit.

 

“Fleur? Gabrielle?” the Goth gasped upon seeing the two.

 

“You know then?” Cho asked, feeling jealous.

 

Jack looked over his shoulder at her, a large grin plastered on his pale face. “Know then? They're my cousins!” he said happily. Turning back to face Dumbledore as he started talking again.

 

“And now our friends from the north. Please greet the proud sons of Durmstrang, And their high master: Igor Karkaroff!”

 

The whole hall turned back to the entrance to see tall, strongly built male teens marching in, slamming their staffs on the ground, sparks flying as they connected.

 

They were all wearing gray military-like uniforms, some wore woolly coats and hats with it. A man with a beard, wearing a white coat came following behind them, along with the man a tall teen, much stronger-built then the others. He looked 17-18 years old and was wearing the same uniform as the other Drumstrang students, but you could tell he had authority over the others.

 

By the time they made it to the front or the hall, Jack was practically drooling at the sight of so many handsome men with well-built muscles and the one who had walked in with their Headmaster had a body that looked like it had been carved out of marble, it might even rival Chase’s!

 

Jack quickly shook his head; mentally slapping himself for thinking of Chase again.

 

As he turned towards the table, food magically appeared.

 

Upon the food appearing, the Academy students went to sit with the Hogwarts-students. When Jack saw Fleur and Gabrielle heading towards the Hufflepuff table he shot to his feet and waved madly to catch their attention “Fleur! Gabrielle! Over Here!” he yelled, not noticing he was making a scene or how cute he looked, waving his arms in the air like an excited child.

 

Looking to where they heard their names being called, both girls faces burst out into large, excited grins “Jackie! Eet ‘as been too long, my little Rabbit!” the oldest blond squealed, running to him and then practically squeezed the life out of him with a bone-breaking hug. Her sister, Gabrielle, was moments behind. “I ‘ave missed you, little Rabbit” she said, then swooped in and kissed him on each cheek.

 

“Fleur! I told you not to call me that!” the Goth whined, wiping his cheek before all three sat down.

 

Moments later the rest of the hall slowly began to go back to what they were doing before as the three started talking in French, but still glancing over at the three gorgeous teen every now and then.

 

“It's great to see you two. I haven’t seen you in almost two years” the Goth said, beginning to eat.

 

“Yes, eet ‘as been too long, but eet is good too see you ‘ave finally been excepted into ‘ogwarts” Fleur said, smiling as Gabrielle leant over, closer to the albino.

 

“You ‘ave given up ze life as ‘Evil Genius’, who wishes to rule ze world, no?” she asked, a curious look on her face.

 

“I‘m afraid so, dear cousin. All my hard work has gone to waste, just because I’m clumsy and weak-bodied” Jack stated with a dramatic sigh before taking another bite of his meal.

 

“ ‘onestly Rabbit! After all zat time eet took me to convince Le-Mime to work for you. Do you even know ’ow ’ard eet was to bargain with someone who cannot speak?” the elder blond asked, pouting, annoyance clearly showing on her face.

 

“And ze only reason ‘e agreed to work for Jackie and set a price for ‘is services was because you showed ‘im a picture of Jack. Turned out ‘e liked what ‘h saw, no?” Gabrielle asked her sister with a sly grin on her face, her eyes never looking away from the now blushing albino.

 

Jack just gave a pout as his two cousins giggled like made. Once the small Goth had, had enough, he decided to speak out “Le-Mime was **Not** working for me because he liked my looks! I was still in my ‘caterpillar’ stage, remember? He worked for me for he could see that **I** was true Evi-”

 

“Your Attention, Please!” Dumbledore yelled; silencing the chatter immediately “I‘d like to say a few words…” his face suddenly became stern “Eternal Glory. That is what awaits the student who wins the Triwizard Tournament. But to do so, that student must survive three tasks. Three **Extremely Dangerous** tasks. For this reason, the Ministry has seen fit to impose a new rule. To explain all this we have the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation; Mr. Bartemius Crouch.” he stated, gesturing towards a man with greying black hair and a Hitler-mustache.

 

He made his way in front of the Headmaster, but before he could say anything the ‘sky’ in the Great Hall became stormy. Thunder and Lightning clashed loudly, making the students panic.

 

Being afraid of the two elements; Jack clung onto Fleur, as did Gabrielle.

 

Suddenly a red light hit the ‘storm-clouds’, making the ‘sky’ become calm once again.

 

Peeking out from behind Fleur, Jack looked to where the mysterious Red-spell had come from; there stood a man with ginger hair and was the same height as Dumbledore. To the students and teachers; he was creepy-looking, but to Jack, he was just plain **Cool!** With his fake eye and metal leg, after all, it's not like the Goth hadn’t seen weirder and creepier, seeing as he’d lived with Cyclops… _(shudder)_.

 

“Who‘s the old-guy?” the Goth whispered to his cousin.

 

“I don’t know!” Fleur whispered back, looking creeped-out.

 

“That’s Alastor Moody, better known as ‘Mad-eye Moody’, he‘s a dark-wizard catcher” a blond haired girl from across the table told them, not even looking-up from her magazine, ‘The Quibbler’.

 

The nervous-looking mustache man known as Bartemius Crouch, stood in front of the, now quiet, teen’s and began to speak.

 

“After due consideration… The Ministry has concluded that, for their own safety, no student under the age of 17 shall be allowed to put forth their name of The Triwizard Tournament” he stated, becoming more nervous and jittery as the young-students became outraged and began shouting.

 

“That’s Rubbish!”

 

“That’s Rubbish! You don’t know what your doing!”

 

Once Dumbledore had, had enough, he spoke-out.

 

“SILENCE!!!” he shouted; his voice bellowing around the large Hall, silencing the angered students.

 

Through all this Jack had stayed quiet; silently thanking god that there was no chance of him somehow being forced into the competition.

 

With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore made the strange tower-thing which was sitting at the front of the hall ‘melt’, revealing a large Goblet with a beautiful blue-flame coming out -of the cup of it.

 

“The Goblet of Fire” Dumbledore announced, making the albino to role his eyes.

 

 _‘Yeah, like no-one would think of a name like that, NOT!’_ he thought to himself, shaking his head.

 

“Anyone wishing to submit themselves to the Tournament” the Headmaster continued “Need only write their name on a piece of parchment and throw it in the flame before this hour on Thursday night. Do not do so lightly. If chosen, there‘s no turning back. As from this moment, The Triwizard Tournament has begun!”

 


	11. Roommates and Monkey Business

                                                       

 

When Jack got to his room which he shared with some other Ravenclaw boys, who were most likely still in the common room, he was greeted with the sight of all his belongings at the bottom of a large four-poster bed, which was dressed in the house colours: Navy blue and white sheets and curtains; same as the other three beds.

 

His Heli-pack was at the bottom of the bed too; leant up against his trunk and on one of the lard pillows at the top of the bed lay Dragon, curled-up in a ball, sound a sleep.

 

The small albino sighed, stripped out of his uniform, leaving him in his boy-shorts like boxes, which had a love-heart paten on them.

 

He went over to his trunk and pulled out a black night-top which had the words _‘I am the Evil-Twin’_ printed in red on the front. The Goth than grabbed his Heli-pack and pulled out his Chase-plushie and climbed into bed, under the sheets.

 

“This school is weird” he yawned “I don’t know if I like it.” he muttered to his plushie quietly, snuggling deeper into the pillow “But these guys are normal compared to Wuya and the Xiaolin losers. And their magic‘s different so I hope…I hope I fit in -” yawn* “-better than... I did…with the Xiaolin lo…” he didn’t get the finish he sentence before falling into a light slumber, clutching his plushie to his chest, unaware of the golden-eyes watching him from the other pillow.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Jack was awoken by the sounds of his roommates loudly chatting as they got dressed.

 

“So how old do you think that hot-French girl is who was taking to the Spicer guy?” one asked.

 

“Seventeen, probably. I don’t know, but too old for any of us” another one said.

 

“Its not like I care anyway. All I care about is if he‘s gay or at least bi!” a new voice from the left of Jack’s bed stated happily.

 

“LING! We do not want to know about what guys you like!” both voices yelled.

 

“Oh come on, Johnny! I saw you eyeing him at the sorting. And you have to admit, he is so CUTE cuddling that teddy, Hikaru!” Ling squealed and only than did Jack figure-out that they were talking about, even though he was still half asleep.

 

“…”

 

“…”

 

“Told you so” Ling said, you could practically hear the smug-grin in his voice.

 

The Goth than began to steer; letting go of his Chase-plushie, muttering something incoherently before rolling-over and falling off the side of the bed with a high-pitched girly scream, landing with a dull ‘thud’.

 

“Gay.” Johnny stated his opinion.

 

“Gay.” Hikaru muttered in agreement.

 

“Cute!” Ling squealed, clasping his hands together.

 

Jack groaned, sitting up and rubbing his face, which had broken his fall. “I aint cute, M’ bad-ass” he muttered as he stood-up, grabbed his baggy school trousers and climbed into them.

 

“Hi! I‘m Ling! Can I ask you something?” Suddenly the guy; Ling, appeared next to him; yelling right in his ear, making him scream like a girl and jump around five foot in the air at his sudden appearance.

 

Ling was obviously Chinese; his eyes were a sharp, dark brown and he had long black hair that reached his lower back, it was tied up in a tight pony-tail by a blue hair-tie, but some louse strands fell in front of his pointed face.

 

“You just did.” Jack muttered, putting some distance between them before taking off his night-shirt and pull on his uniform-shirt “But I know you’ll ask anyway so I’ll answer ya’ before you wait your breath asking; Yes. I‘m gay.” he said, while pulling on his robe, then his boots.

 

“Ummm……YAY!” Ling said, grinning widely, bouncing down on the bed next to the Goth.

 

The boy with sea-green eyes and short blond hair which curled a bit at the ends waved lazily to the albino.

 

“Hay, my names Johnny”

 

“And I‘m Hikaru-san, but you can call me just Hikaru” Hikaru said, smiling at the other as he sat down on one of the other large beds; pulling on his shoes. He seemed to be from Japan; he had short, spiked light-brown hair and brown eyes. His hair wasn’t neat spikes like Jack but small messy spikes, which stakeout everywhere.

 

“Nice ta‘ meet ya’, M’Jack” Jack said tiredly, fixing his hair in his handheld mirror.

 

“How old are you?” Ling asked, leaning closer to the smaller teen as he put on his goggles.

 

“14, nearly 15” the albino answered, and started putting on his makeup.

 

“Is it true you part Veela?” Hikaru asked, leaning back on his hands.

 

“Yeah” he shrugged.

 

“How do you know those hot French girls?” Johnny asked, leaning against a near wall.

 

“They'er my cousins.” he said, pulling the Chinese boy off his bed and began making it, placing his plushie on his pillow and saw Dragon still laying there, just staring at him.

 

“Hay, what’s with the weird boots?” Ling asked, hoping that this would make the little redhead start having a conversation with them instead of short answers and he was right too.

 

“There my jet-boots; I invented them myself” Jack said proudly as he pulled on his Heli-pack.

 

“What‘s a jet?” Johnny asked, making Jack stop-dead in his tracks.

 

“How do you NOT KNOW what a jet is?!” he asked the blond, practically yelling “Jet-plane, The Jet-Engine, James Bond’s Jet-pack?! Any of this ringing any bells!?”

 

“Woh, woh! Calm down, sweet-cheeks! He‘s a pure-blood; he doesn’t know about muggle stuff! …and James Bond had a jet-pack?” Ling said, putting a hand on the Goths shoulder; trying to calm him.

 

“So What?! I’m a Fucking Pure-blood! Even Draco had a basic understanding of this kind of stuff!… And I Think So! All Spy’s Have Jet-Packs!” Jack yelled, doing a loud more hand-gestures than normal

 

“Just calm down, Jack. We got to get down to the Great-Hall and get our time-tables!” Hikaru called from outside the room, surprising the three inside; not having noticed that the other had left the bed room.

 

“Oh God, your right! I don’t wanna be late for our first class!” Johnny yelled, quickly running past the distracted albino and out the bedroom door. Not wanting to be on the receiving end of the Goth’s rant anymore.

 

“He’s right, Jack. We have to go!” Ling agreed and pulled Jack out the room by the wrist.

 

“Later, Dragon!” the Goth called back over his shoulder to the half asleep black feline.

 

* * *

  
Jack sighed in annoyance; he was being pulled through the hallway by Ling and Johnny to their first class of the day as Hikaru walked in front of them.

 

“Soo…what‘s our first class?” the Goth asked, raising his voice over the two bickering teens, who where practically dragging him down the corridor.

 

“Potions with Professor-”

 

“Greasy Git.” Ling stated; interrupting Johnny.

 

“No! Professor-”

 

“Sour-puss.”

 

“No, Ling! Professor-”

 

“Ares-hole.”

 

“Ling! Stop-It!” the blond yelled, slapping the Chinese teen over the head. “Snape. Potions with Professor Snape and the HufflePuff‘s” he added as they made their way down stairs to the dungeons.

 

Once they made it to the Potions-class entrance, they were greeted by the sight of a couple other Ravenclaw’s and HufflePuff’s, which looked jittery and nervous.

 

Jack turned to Ling and asked in a scared voice “Is the Potions Master as bad as he seems…?”.

 

“Yes.” his three friends stated firmly in unison, no hesitation in the slightest.

 

The doors to the classroom opened which a terrifying creek, revealing an alright looking middle-aged man with narrow fetchers, hooked nose and shoulder length black hair which framed his face nicely.

 

Jack couldn’t help but blush and realize that he new he was not going to be able to concentrate during this class. He was nowhere as good looking as Chase and his hair wasn’t as nice-looking, plus he looked like he hadn’t any body-training, but he was tall. Taller than Chase in fact and had cool black eyes which held wisdom like Chase.

 

“Enter. Quickly.” the dark haired Professor stated coldly.

 

Jack barely held back a fanboy-squeal at his cold, emotionless, deep voice. The albino couldn’t help it; he was so much like Chase!!!

 

Everyone hurried into the dimly lit classroom as Jack never taking his eyes of the Professor; the Goth knew he had found his favorite class.

 

* * *

  
After a class full of mostly staring-dreamily at the teacher who kept telling Jack to pay attention, Jack made his way outside to look around the school grounds.

 

The chilly-wind blew silently around him, making some stray leafs to get swept-up and fly around him, it also made his limp hair wave softly; the ends brushing his shoulders as he turned his head to look at the calm, shimmering lack, but unnoticed to Jack, someone was standing off to the side; watching this display of beauty.

 

Feeling his hair tickle his cheeks, the albino remembered that he had no hair-gel in it; he had not time that morning. Jack quickly reached into his Heli-pack and pulled out his special hair-gel and compact-mirror and started styling it into his normal spikes.

 

The Goth gave a happy sigh at his appearance. He didn’t know why but all the kids when he was in primary-school made fun of his hair; the color and the style, actually no one had ever complemented him on his looks or flirted with him, but he figured that was because the spell his ancestors put on his family:

 

You don’t get any of your Veela qualities until they are excepted into a magic-school. This way, no one would want them if they were squibs and that stopped them from breeding and passing on the ‘defected’ gene or stop them breeding with muggles and shaming the family; tainting their pure-blood.

 

Jack gave another happy sigh at the thought of not being seen as ‘ugly’ anymore.

 

He got the shrunken ‘Monkey-staff’ from his pack and turned it normal size with a quick charm. “Monkey-staff!” he yelled, activating the Wu; a long furry-tail popped out from his trousers, which was hidden by his robe and his small ears became fuzzy and enlarged slightly, giving him a cute, animal-look.

 

Jack giggled and climbed-up a, some-what large tree that was near the lack, he just hung up-side-down by his tail, grinning like made; he Loved this Shen-Gong-Wu! It was so much fun!

 

The Goth stopped messing around in the tree when he heard foot-steps running away making a light ‘thud, thud, thud’ sound that only Jack could hear because of his now monkey ears.

 

Turning to the noise, the teen saw a figure running away. Realising that they might of seen the ‘monkey’ him, he quickly jumped out the tree and de-activated his Wu and ran back to the castle.

 


	12. The Champions'

 

It was a horrible, evening of the last day for students to entire the tournament and the last minute entries, having finally gathered all their courage, were throwing their names into the blue flame of the Goblet. Cedric Diggory had just thrown his parchment in and was talking with his friends.

 

“Man, Eternal Glory. If you win Cedric, the girls are going to be all _over_ you!” Tim cheered, patting Cedric on the back as they sat down.

 

“That is if you win or even survive” Adam teased from behind him.

 

Suddenly Donald, another one of Cedric’s mates came rushing into the Hall and over to the group “Guys! Those hot foreign chicks are coming” he whispered excitedly, sitting down next to them and looking towards the Halls entrance in anticipation.

 

As soon as the words left his mouth did they enter the Great-Hall.

 

* * *

 

\-- Cedric‘s P.O.V:

 

I look up to see at least five girls coming through the doors, all dressed in blue and the tall blond that had been talking with the new Ravenclaw like they were old friends, was leading the gorgeous group. I guess she’s entering the Triwizard Tournament since they were heading straight towards the Goblet confidently.

 

As I turn my head to look at the Hall, I see a flash of red and blue. Well speak of the devil; it was the cute new Ravenclaw, ‘Jack’ was his name I think. He was with the other, younger French girl that he had been chatting with at the sorting. They were sitting on one of the benches, reading.

 

The cute newbie: Jack had his hair in adorable spikes with one or two strands of hair coming out from under his goggles into his face. He was rubbing the bridge of his nose with his index finger; showing that he was concentrating.

 

He’s so cute...

 

Moments later, Longbottom was standing in front of him and touching his shoulder; making him jump and making him scream like a school girl, it is so adorable to see him jump like that, but what was even cuter was when he jumped up, he knocked all the books off his lap and onto the floor. His skittish and clumsiness are such adorable quirks!

 

Once the books hit the floor, I quickly made my way over to him and help him pick up the book along with Neville. This was such a perfect chance to introduce myself to him.

 

* * *

 

\--Normal P.O.V:

 

‘Damn-it! Why do I have to be so uncoordinated and clumsy?! If I wasn’t such a wimp, I wouldn’t be so clumsy all the time‘ Jack scolded as he sighed and reached out to get the last book when someone else suddenly picked it up and handed it back to him. Looking up Jack’s face turned immediately bright red. But honestly, what gay guy or straight-girl wouldn’t; the guy in front of him was gorgeous! He has lightly tanned skin, a strong looking jaw, and soft-looking sandy brown hair. He had an athletic build and was wearing a Hufflepuff uniform, he was very handsome.

 

“I…I am- um…my name- I mean…Hi?” the Goth stuttered nervously.

 

He smiles at Jack and hands him his book “Hi, I‘m Cedric Diggory, nice to meet you.” he says, his smile becoming wider.

 

“I-it’s a nice to meet you too, Diggory. I-I‘m Jack S-Spicer..” Jack squeaked, taking the book “T-Thank you”.

 

They stand and Jack notices Neville looking pissed off for some reason “O-oh! Umm… Diggory this is Neville” he introduced, making loads of hand-gestures, thinking that was the problem.

 

“Yeah, I know Neville.” he says, nodding at the other teen before turning back to Jack “And you can just call me ‘Cedric’ if you want, Jack” he says, smiling down at him causing Jack to I notice how incredibly tall he was compared to the Goth. ‘Wow, he must be like, 17!’ Jack gawked mentally, no one older than him had been nice to him before, they usually thought he was too childish to even acknowledge him.

 

“Okay” he squeaks, blushing like mad. Cedric just smiled at Jack again and nods.

 

“Cool. See you later, Jack.” he waves as he walks away, his other hand brushing Jack’s for a moment, causing him to bite his lip to prevent himself from squealing with delight.

 

As the elder teen left, Jack slumped back down into his seat in between Neville and Gabrielle when suddenly the guy everyone in the Wizarding world thought was hot walked into the room; Victor Krum. So Jack turned away to his cousin asked Gabrielle something that has been on his mind for awhile now “Why is this school **full** of hot guys?”  
Gabrielle giggled and Neville choked.

 

* * *

 

  
That night after the feast everyone was waiting very impatiently, fidgeting and standing up from their seats to see if Professor Dumbledore had finished eating yet. All of them wanting him to hurry up so that they could finally find out who the selected champions were going to be.

 

Finally, the golden plates were cleared causing the noise levels to pitch in excitement. “Sit down. Please.” the Headmaster requested politely, getting the students attention easily.

 

Jack perked up from where he sat with the Beauxbatons Academy students, in-between Gabrielle and Fleur.

 

“Now the moment you‘ve all been waiting for: The Champion Selection. The Goblet seems ready to make its decision” Dumbledore announced, waving his hand, making the lights go out, so the only light in the Hall was the blue glow from the Goblet of Fire “Now when the Champions’ names are called, I ask them to please come up to the top of the Hall and go into the next chamber” the Headmaster explained, indicating to the door behind the staff table.

 

Everyone was deadly silent and watching the goblet as it shone more brightly as its flame turned a dark pink and shot out a small piece of burnt parchment causing everyone to gasp and Dumbledore to snatch it from the air with a swift movement.

 

“The Durmstrang champion will be… Victor Krum!” he read in a strong, clear voice and the Great-Hall became alive with cheering and clapping as Victor came down; shook hands with Dumbledore and left to the champions common-room.

 

“No surprises there!” Jack heard one of the red-heads from the Quidditch World Cup yell, but he was right; from what he knew Krum was practically the only Drumstrang student to even apply to the Tournament.

 

“Bravo, Victor!” the Drumstrang Headmaster, Karkaroff cheered “Knew you had it in you!”

 

Once the applause died down, everyone’s attention turned back to the Goblet just as the second parchment piece shot out. “The champion for Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour!”

 

At hearing Fleur’s name, Jack and Gabrielle had to stop themselves from jumping up from their seats and squealing in happiness. They had to make-do with clapping and cheering like mad as Fleur make her way down between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables towards the staff table. As Fleur disappeared into the back room, Jack couldn’t help but cackle at a couple other Beauxbaton girls who had broken down into tear at not being selected, they were idiots in Jack’s opinion; of course, his cousin was going to be the champion! They were stupid for even getting their hopes up!

 

“And finally, the Hogwarts Champion is… Cedric Diggory!” Dumbledore announced as he caught the last parchment.

 

At hearing the name, Jack couldn’t help but grin; he knew that guy, it was the cute one he met earlier! Out of all the people in Hogwarts, it was someone he knew! And plus, Cedric is Hot in his opinion! Who better to represent Hogwarts than a good-looking guy?

 

“Excellent! We now have our three champions, but in the end, only one will go down in history. The only one will hoist this chalice of champions. This vessel of victory, The Triwizard Cup!” he announced revealing a glowing blue glass trophy “I am sure I can count on the rest of you to support your champions‘- ” he continued only to stop abruptly as the Goblet once again began to glow, much to everyone’s utter confusion.

 

The Headmaster reached out and seized the mysterious parchment that the Goblet finally shot out, before holding it out and stared down at it solemnly. “..Harry Potter” he muttered, reading the piece of paper.

 

“Harry Potter?” he asked, looking around for Harry, but no one answered.

 

“ ** _Harry Potter!_** ” Dumbledore yelled, the look on his face clearly showed he was getting angry.

 

Jack was so very confused at this point, he was looking around for this ‘Harry’ when he saw a boy with scruffy black hair, glasses and wearing a Gryffindor uniform. He remembering him from the Top-Box at the Quidditch World Cup, along with the redhead and brunette next to him. He was getting pulled out of his seat by the bushy brown haired girl and shoved towards the front. When ‘Harry’ made his way to the headmaster and took the parchment, he looked like he was going to freak-out.

 

* * *

 

  
While in the Champions common-room, Fleur, Victor, and Cedric had no idea as to what was going on, they were just chatting awkwardly and looking around at all the silver trophies dotted around the room.

 

“Hay, Fleur, was it?” Cedric asked cautiously, from behind the French girl as she fixed her hair in a mirror.

 

“Yes, Cedric?”

 

“How do you know that redhead: Jack?”

 

“We are cousins’ ” she answered with a shrug as she applying more lip gloss.

 

“Oh... Umm, so do you know if he‘s got a girlfriend?” he asked, blushing a light pink that Fleur noticed and smirked mischievously at him through the mirror.

 

“No. No girlfriend. Rabbit ’as no interest in girls. But boyfriend, I don’t think so; ’e is no good at talking to attractive boys”

 

“Oh.” Cedric’s face burst into a grin “Thanks, Fleur” he said as the door burst open violently by the teachers.

 

 


	13. Secret Admirer

 

“I think he‘s a spoilt brat” Hikaru muttered as they arrived at the common room.

 

“Yeah! Just because he‘s _‘Harry Flipping Potter’_ he thinks he can do whatever he bloody well wants!” Johnny agreed, crossing his arms in a sulking manner.

 

“I think if anyone from a younger year should be chosen, it should have been a Ravenclaw! I mean, we’re the smartest out of all the houses! Gryffindor’s are just foolishly brave!” Ling yelled, making his way to their room.

 

“Well, I want to know how he got his name in the goblet” Jack muttered to himself as he sat down on his bed.

 

“Meow!” Dragon called, jumping onto his lap, demanding attention.

 

“Hey, Dragon. How was your day?” the Goth asked, stroking the midnight fur gently. Dragon purred and arched his back into the petting hand.

 

The albino smiled as he picked Dragon up before and put him on his pillow before standing up and heading off to take a shower. Once he was done, he came back into the bedroom with his hair flat against his head and dressed in only his white boxes-shorts. He gave a cute yawn and climbed into bed, cuddling his ‘chase-plushie’.

 

“G’night, guys...” he called before slipping into unconsciousness to the sound of the rain hitting the window.

 

“Night” Hikaru muttered.

 

“...Sleep tight” Johnny yawned, snuggling into his pillow.

 

“Don’t let the pixies bite” Ling added, making Jack giggle before going to sleep.

 

* * *

 

  
It was a normal day and Harry was leaning against a tree next to the lake, which Neville was standing in; collecting specimens. Harry picked up one of Neville’s books and read-out the title “Magical water plants of the Highland lochs?”

 

“Moody gave it to me. That day we had tea” Neville said and glanced up at Harry nervously “Um, Harry? Can y-you give me s-some advice?” he asked.

 

“Yeah, Neville. What is it?” the golden boy asked, putting the book down.

 

“W-well, it's this person I l-like…they‘re, like, really beautiful, gorgeous, just really…perfect and I‘m... me. Their way out of my league, but I don’t think they know that. S-so what should I do?” Neville asked, never looking up from the water.

 

“Well, I don’t know. Try being friends with her first, that way you‘ll be close to her emotionally, then ask her out” Harry said, not sure what to say, seeing as he never had a girlfriend.

 

“I’ve already tried that! But they never look at me the same way they’re always looking at the guys from Durmstrang! I’m obviously not their type!” Neville whined.

 

“How do you know you’re not her type?”

 

“Because I heard them talking to a friend, saying that they like guys who are Strong, brave, handsome, smart, well built, has dark hair and for some strange reason; Evil, but still has Honour.” Neville listed, making Harry feel sorry for him.

 

“Wow, that’s a long list. Well, you have... Umm, Ah! Dark hair and you're smart! And you also have honour, Neville. The other things you can work on” he said, trying to cheer him up.

 

“Yeah, I guess. But t-they said it like they were describing someone they knew… _b-but by the sad look o-on his face, it must have been an old boyfriend or crush or something that didn’t work out_ ” he told him, whispering the last bit to himself.

 

Moments later, Hermione, Ron and Ginny came walking through the tree’s, Ron and Ginny stopped a little bit away, but Hermione walked up to Harry, looking like she was concentrating. “Ron would like me to tell you that Seamus told him that Dean was told by Parvati that Hagrid’s looking for you” she stated with great difficulty.

 

“Right, well you tell him, that... What?”

 

Hermione sighed and tried again “Dean was told by Parati that…please don’t asked me to say it again” she pleaded, giving up. “Hagrid‘s looking for you” she finished.

 

“Okay” Harry said as she walked off, his brain finally working; he said bye to Neville and went to find Hagrid.

 

* * *

 

The next day Jack took his normal seat next to Ling, across from Hikaru and Johnny at breakfast when a black owl with white specials landed in front of him.

 

“Strange, it's not mail-day” Hikaru said, between stuffing his face. Ling nodded and took the letter from the bird, knowing Jack hated owl’s; he said it was because they were unpredictable, not that any of them believed him. Ling handed the letter to the small albino as the bird flew away. Jack opened the envelope and started reading:

 

 ** _-To my Dearly Beloved_ **  
_It‘s amazing how I feel when I’m around you,_  
_How my heart pounds when you come into the room,_  
_I look at you and think My God! How Beautiful!_  
_And everything I burst into bloom._  
_I feel as though you must, you must be mine,_  
_Not as a possessing but a goal,_  
_Something almost unimaginable:_  
_The free devotion of another soul._  
_As though I were about to enter heaven_  
_Or just within the hour condemned to die,_  
_My mind with one fierce thought keeps running over,_  
_With you, and only you, the reason why._  
**_Please meet me in the Owlery._ **  
**_Love from your secret admirer.-_ **

 

By the time he had finished reading the poem, Jack’s face was the same shade of red his hair was.

 

“What‘s it say?” Johnny asked leaning over the table to see, but Jack quickly pulled it to his chest.

 

“Nothing!” he yelled, making Johnny, Ling and Hikaru grin mischievously. Ling quickly threw his arms around Jack, trapping him as Hikaru and Johnny jumped over the table and grabbed the letter from the Goth and began to read as Jack struggled against Ling’s hold and tried to snatch the love-letter back but failed miserably.

 

“Ooooh! Someone‘s got a secret admirer!” the two said in ‘sing-song’ voices, making Jack hid his face in his hands as people looked over.

 

“NO!!! Jackie‘s mine!!!” Ling whined childishly, a playful smirk on his face. Seeing the Goth had finally given up struggling, Ling let him go and took the letter and read it himself, “So... You going?” he asked, becoming serious, well as serious as he can get, and the others sat back in their seats.

 

“What?” the albino asked, confused about what he was talking about.

 

“It says, right here; ‘please meet me in the Owlery’. So, are you going?” he asked, handing the love-letter back to Jack.

 

 _‘Maybe I should use one of my Wu to see who it is first’_ he thought to himself as he folded the letter and turned back to the others.

 

“I guess, but if it’s a crazed fangirl I‘m making a run for it.”

 

* * *

 

  
Jack sat there, on one of the many steps in the Owlery waiting for his secret admirer. He was beginning to think that this was some cruel joke; he had been sitting here for ten minutes now and no one had shown up.

 

His whole ‘see who it was first’ plan went out the window when he remembered that if anyone saw him climbing up the side of the Owlery tower while having a monkey tail and ears, people would think he was a freak or the teachers might try and confiscate his Wu; and the _last thing_ he wanted was to get into a Show-Down with a  teacher.

 

So there he sat; with his back against the wall, perched on one of the steep steps and half asleep. He had just slipped into a light slumber when someone tapped Jack on the shoulder, causing him to emit a high-pitch, girly squeal and jump in shock equalling in him falling down a couple steps “Please don’t kill me! I‘m too young and evil to die!!!” the youth pleaded as someone grabbed his arm, stopping him from cracking his head open on the steps before he let out an equally frightened squeal as he was swiftly pulled off the floor and up against a strong chest.

 

“‘Too evil’?” the Goths unknown-savior asked, making Jack look up to see the face of Cedric looking down at him with an amused smile on his face.

 

“Umm… O-old habit” the albino stated with an embarrassed blush spreading across his usually white face. “A-are you the one w-who sent me the t-the letter?” Jack asked, stepping away from the elder.

 

“What letter?” Cedric asked with a confused look on his face.

 

“Oh.. Guess not” the Goth muttered, looking down in disappointment.

 

“Hey, Rabbit. I‘m messing with you! I sent it!” Cedric said while snickering. Jack's head shot up, a smile plastered on his face.

 

“Really!? So you like m- Wait! Did you just call me Rabbit?!” he yelled, more embraced than he was before. Cedric couldn’t help but smile at the red, adorable face “How Do _You_ Know My Nick-Name?!…and I didn’t know you were good at poetry?” Jack asked the older.

 

“Well, of course, I know it; Fleur uses it all the time when she‘s talking about you” he said, ruffling the Goths hair “And yes. I like you, I want to date you... And I sort of got the poem out a book if the library” the sandy-haired teen added, in a sexy voice as he leant down to Jacks level. “So. Will you go out with me?”

 

All Jack could do was nod as his brain caught up with what had just happened; Cedric Diggory. The most popular teen in Hogwarts and the Hogwarts-champion, a complete Hottie was asking him to go steady with him!! This was weirder than when he met his future self! Twilight Zone! X-Files!

 

“So you wanna hang out with me and some friends?” Cedric asked, holding out his hand, which Jack took without thinking and was lead away.

 

* * *

 

  
A couple days later Jack was hanging with his new boyfriend and his friends, outside the castle on the school grounds. They were all messing around and having fun with Cedric laying on a bench with his head on the albino’s lap as Kate and Adam tried to throw ‘Betty-Botts Every Flavour Bean’s’ into his open mouth. Tim and Donald were standing behind the bench, giggling their asses off every time Cedric got his in the face with a stray bean or when he made a face when he got a nasty tasting one.

 

Tim had given Jack one of the magic badges which had Cedric’s name and face on and the changed to show Harry Potter’s face and read: _Potter Stinks_ , it might have been crude and a bit cruel but the Goth had to laugh at the sound it made when it changed to Potters face, and plus, he was happy someone else was being made fun of instead of him, for once.

 

But when Harry stomped up to them Cedric looked guilty and that made Jack feel guilty.

 

“Can I talk to you?” Harry asked as Cedric sat up.

 

“Yeah.” he said, standing up “Back in a minute.” the sandy-haired teen told Jack before walking off with Harry.

 

“Hay! Read the badge Potter!” Tim and Adam yelled after them as they disappeared behind a tree. Jack snickered along with Kate and ate some beans while waiting for Cedric. After a couple of minutes, Jack saw Harry come out from behind the large tree. Jack quickly jumped up and went to see what was taking Cedric so long. When he got to the tree and saw his boyfriend, the albino became concerned; Cedric had a thoughtful but freaked-out look on his face, his skin ash-white.

 

“What‘s the matter, Ced’?” he asked, putting his hand on his boyfriend's shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts.

 

“Dragons” Cedric muttered.

 

“Huh?” Jack asked, tilting his head cutely in a confused way.

 

“Dragons. The first task: I have to fight a Dragon.” Cedric muttered, to him, still in shock.

 

“WHAT!? Nononononononono! No! you can't fight a Dragon! Do you even know how hard they are to fight!? Or even run away from!?” the smaller practically yelled at him, freaking out.

 

“How would you know?” Cedric asked, becoming curious.

 

“I‘ll have you know, I fort a two-headed Dragon a year or so back with a hovercraft I built and I fired **Nuclear weapons** at it and _nothing_! It didn’t even blink! And it ATE me! So I‘m _sorry_ if I‘m worried!” Jack screeched at him in a low, hissing voice so only they heard.

 

“It's okay, I‘ll be fine, Rabbit. But seriously, you were eaten by a Dragon? Is there anything else you‘d like to tell me or that I should know now?” he asked, crossing his arms and looking down at the younger with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Um...” nervous laugh “Nothing too important” Jack muttered with a nervous smile, twiddling his thumbs. _‘Unless you count how I used to be an ‘Evil boy-genius’ trying to take over the world with the help of a ghost of an evil witch and collecting Shen-Gone-Wu. Built a robot clone of myself, was an immortals minion, met a giant Cyclops, used to fight  four super-powered teens who know kung-fu, that ride on a flying Dragon, and I met a giant talking bean, and a French talking flower and other shit like that..’_ he thought to himself _‘My life is just plain Weird’_ he mentally added in sudden realisation.

 

Just as Cedric pulled a face in disbelief at his obvious lie they heard yelling not too far away, distracting them and followed Kate, Adam, Donald and Tim as they came running past towards the sound curiously. What they saw next shocked them beyond belief: Professor Moody was making a white ferret fly up and down using magic, calling it names. _‘Okay, did I say my life is weird? I’ll have to add my school life to that too. This is definitely gonna make my top 10 weirdness list… crazy teachers…’_

 

Moments later Professor McGonagall came running up to the insane teacher “Professor Moody! What-what are you doing?” she asked, watching the ferret bob up and down.

  
“Teaching.” Moody states, bluntly.

 

“Is that a- Is that a student?!” she asked in her shrill voice.

 

“Technically, it’s a ferret” he answers simply, shoving the ferret into another student's trousers who then started panicking. A taller boy, most likely a friend of the other, fatter teen, tried to get the ferret out the fatter boys trousers but pulled back quickly after being bitten.

 

When the ferret came out the pants-leg, McGonagall waved her wand; turning the white ferret into a dishevelled Slytherin.  _‘Draco. Typical’_ Jack thought with an eye roll and shock of his head.

 

He looked to be in a state of panic “My father will hear about this!” he yells but quickly ran as Moody began chasing him.

 

“Is that a threat?!” Moody yelled after him, trying to follow to give the teen a swift kick in the arse, but was stopped by McGonagall.

 

“We _Never_ Use Transfiguration as a Punishment! Surely Dumbledore told you that!” she screeches at him.

 

“He might have mentioned it” Moody muttered.

 

“Well, you will do well to remember it” she says in a scolding tone, before walking away. As soon as her back was turned, Moody makes a face at her which made Jack snicker uncontrollably even after he’d gone.

 


	14. Mad-Eyes

 

“So what have you got today?” Hikaru asked, not looking up from his breakfast as he stuffed his face. 

 

“Huh?” Jack blinked, turning away from the package his mum had sent him “Oh, um, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Arithmancy this morning. I think…”

 

“Ugh, Arithmancy? Why‘d you choose that?” Hikaru grimaced “It‘s so boring! You should have elected to do Muggle Studies instead”

 

“I grew up as a Muggle, what could they teach me that I don‘t already know?” Jack scoffed, putting his package in his bag “Besides, Arithmancy is practically Calculus, not very hard for a genius like me” he smirked.

 

“…What‘s ‘Calculus’?” Johnny asked in utter confusion, which Ling responded to with a comforting pat on the back.

 

“Don‘t worry, John. Most Muggles’ don‘t know either” he shrugged “I‘m terrible at basic maths, calculus might as well be rocket science to me”

 

“Rocket science isn‘t that hard” Jack stated confidently before turning back to Hikaru “So what you got?”

 

“Defence and Muggle Studies” Hikaru grinned cheekily.

 

“But you’re a Half-Blood aren’t you?”

 

“Yep! It‘ll be the easiest ‘E’ I ever got!” Hikaru chuckled as they rose and headed for their first class.

 

* * *

 

  
“What do we know about this Moody guy?” Jack asked as they waited outside the classroom with the rest of the Ravenclaws’ and the HufflePuffs’.

 

“He‘s an ex-Auror” Johnny shrugged “Highest Dark-Wizard arrests in history… And he taught the Gryffindors‘ and Slytherin‘s about the Unforgivable Curses during their first class”

 

“He‘s pretty awesome from what I heard but completely mad as a hatter!” Hikaru grinned.

 

“I heard from Marcus that he turned Malfoy into a _FERRET_!” Ling added in utter glee, throwing his arm over Jack’s shoulders.

 

The Goth sniggered gleefully “Oh yeah, that was awesome! Draco makes a great ferret!”

 

“‘Draco?’, you know that git?” Johnny frowned.

 

Jack shrugged casually “Yeah, my mum dragged me to the World Cup with his family. He can be a jerk, but he gets my dark sense of humour”

 

As the time for class began the group of excited students filed into the room and taking their seats, taking out their copies of _‘The Dark Forces: A Guide of Self-Protection’_.

 

“Put them away” Professor Moody grumbled as he limped into the room before turning to the class “From what I‘ve gathered, you all are _very behind_ on dealing with curses”

 

Grinning in anticipation, Jack leant forward in his seat, just from that sentence alone he could tell exactly what they were learning about today. The Unforgivables’ were so Evil that he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the, if only he knew about them before he retired from the Heylin.

 

“Well, right to it I guess. Curses come in many forms and strengths. According to the Ministry, I‘m not meant to show you what illegal look like and am supposed to just teach you to counter curse. But the Headmaster has given me permission to since how are you supposed to defend yourselves against something if you don‘t know what it looks like?” Moody asked rhetorically “You need to be prepared! _Constant Vigilance_!  That keeps you alive! So what are the most heavily punishable curse by Wizarding Law that you need to watch out for?”

 

Jack’s hand immediately shot into the air, causing Moody to raise an eyebrow at his enthusiasm “Well aren't you an eager one? Well then, go ahead”

 

“ _Cruciatus_ ~” Jack purred gleefully, causing his classmates to lean away from him nervously “An Unforgivable Curse that can cause immense suffering with a single word”

 

Moody gave Jack an intense stare “You think that’s funny, lad? A curse that can turn a grown man insane?”

 

“No” Jack stated bluntly before smirking “I find it compelling. Just like Imperius and Avada Kedavra, three of the most powerful curse's in history are illegal even though they are probably the most useful, especially if used by the Ministry” he shrugged.

 

Nodding silent agreement, Moody turned back to the rest of the class to begin his demonstration.

 

“Do you really mean that?” Johnny whispered nervously, eyeing the Goth carefully as the other two leant in to hear his reply.

 

“Obviously” Jack scoffed “A Government that bans the use of their greatest weapons is _begging_ to be conquered. Besides, they can be used for thing other than evil. Just get creative; the Killing curse is more humane than a Dementors’ Kiss, the same with how they use them in prisons when they could use the Imperious curse to keep the prisoners in check”

 

“What about the Cruciatus curse then?” Hikaru asked sceptically.

 

“Interrogating Dark Wizards and Witches” Jack replied confidently “Why waste money and time on making Veritaserum, something that takes nearly an entire month to brew when the mere threat of the Cruciatus curse will get you everything you want to know nine times out of ten?”

 

“He has a point” Ling admitted.

 

“I‘m sure he does, Mr. Zhao” Moody interrupted them, causing the small group to jump in surprise and look up at the creepy Professor “A very interesting conversation you four are having, but maybe you would like to pay attention to the lesson? Oh, and also… **_CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!_** ”

 

* * *

  
It was a cold and dark, early November night in the land of Nowhere and the Lord of the land, Chase Young, the guy with the coolest porch in history ever, was sitting in his throne. He sat in front of his ‘Eye Spy Orb’ solemnly.

 

After much persuasion from his cat-warriors, who were sick and tired of Chase moping around, had convinced him to search for a certain redheaded, boy genius. Normally, all Chase had to do was think of the person he wished to see and they’d show up it the Orb, but no matter what the Dragon-Lord did he could not locate his annoying fan little boy.

 

He had spied in on the Monks when they found the note and he had to say, it shocked him. The little ghost boy, who wanted to take over the earth, who kept going after the Shen-Gong-Wu knowing he had no chance of winning a Showdown but didn’t care, Just Gave Up!?

 

When he’d first heard about it, he’d sulked for a week be for his cats started bothering him and ended up at his ‘E.S Orb’ to find the brat and the school but nothing happened.

 

It didn’t work, which was impossible, well... From what he knew, it was. Chase had gone straight to Wuya, knowing she knew more about magic than him, but she had told him, after much convincing, that the only thing that had the ability to block a magical signal was an even stronger magic, but seeing as there was no magic stronger than Chase and no magic stronger than the ‘E.S Orb’, she had no clue what was wrong. 

 

The Dragon didn’t give up, now it had cached his interest, and kept trying unfortunately to no avail. Where ever Spicer was, it was not possible to find him with Heylin-magic.

 

Chase slumped back into his throne and gave a tired sigh “I give in, I shall simply wait for my Spicer to return home. Then ask him where his school is.” he stated to no one in particular, suddenly he realised what he had said, _‘My Spicer? Since when has that annoying worm been mine?’_ Chase gave another tired sigh and put the thought in the back of his mind for the time-being before getting back to the subject of  where his little albino fanboy was.

 

Thinking for a moment, Young closed his eyes and nodded before looking back to the ‘E.S Orb’. Just because he couldn’t find Spicer doesn’t mean the Monks couldn’t find anything.

 

 


	15. Task of the Day

 

The atmosphere in Hogwarts was incredibly tense on the morning of the First Task and Jack was no exception. He was so nervous, but also very excited at the same time.

 

The Goth was thrilled at the idea of watching people fight Dragons, but not his boyfriend and cousin!  
“Will you calm down, Jack!” Johnny groaned, smacking the red-heads hand away from his mouth “And don‘t bite your nails, it‘s obnoxious”

 

“My boyfriend and cousin might die today, so sue me if I bite my nails!” Jack scolded, but leaving his hands alone anyway “I can‘t loose my cousin and first ever boyfriend to a Dragon! Even if that would be a cool story… but at the same time kinda’ lame, I don‘t wanna tell people I lost my boyfriend, that I had for less than a month, in a fight against a mythical creature!”

 

“So your not really worried about him dying because you care about him, but because…” Hikaru frowned in confusion, scratching the back of his head “What? I would give you a bad rep?”

 

“No” Jack scoffed “But like I said: I’ve only been dating Cedric for just under a month. I’m not that attached to him yet ”

 

“I love how Jack doesn‘t mince his words~” Ling cooed, cuddling the Goth and rubbing his cheek against his hair affectionately “All hard truths~”

 

“He is lovably blunt” Hikaru teased.

 

“It‘s ‘Brutal Honesty’ actually” Jack sulked, wishing he’d known that total honesty was crueler than lies were when he was still fighting the Xiaolin Losers. People seemed much more scared and disturbed by him now that he was honest about his opinions’.

 

“Whatever you say, Jackie-boy” Hikaru snorted, shoving another piece of toast into his mouth before grabbing the back of the red-heads robes and began dragging him out of his seat “Come on, I want to get some good seats to the Task. The last thing I want is to be stuck sitting behind some giant 7th-year student and not be able to see anything”

 

“Good point” Jack grinned as the taller teen pulled him from the Hall while Johnny and Ling trailed behind happily “Wouldn’t want to miss any of the carnage!”

 

* * *

 

“Who should I be cheering for?” Jack asked randomly, minutes before the First Task was scheduled to begin.

 

“You're asking that _now_?”

 

“I didn’t think about it until now!” Jack defend himself, raising his hands and shrugging. He’d been too in awe at the fact that he had a boyfriend to even think about that he was one of the Competitors facing off against his cousin.

 

“ ‘honestly, Jack-Rabbit” Gabrielle sighed good-naturedly with a shake of her head.

 

“What?!” Jack cried, his voice cracking in a shrill pitch “ ‘Honestly’ what!? I can't help it if my genius brain was too preoccupied with stuff you lot couldn’t even comprehend and not on trivial things like who I should be cheering for!”

 

“Would these ‘genius things’ have anything to do with Cedric‘s arse by any chance?” Ling grinned causing Gabrielle to giggle at Jack’s red face.

 

“Not that we blame you, of course” Hikaru snickered.

 

Jack flipped off the brunette just as Bagman stood up in the judges booth of the large circular stadium, pointing his wand to his throat and performing ‘ _Sonorus_ ’ causing his voice to boom out across the stands.

 

“The First Task for our four Champions is to face one of the most fearsome beasts known to man” he said ominously, causing Jack to roll his eyes at the dramatics, that just sounded cheesy, even to him “And retrieve what is protected. The first Challenger: Cedric Diggory! On the count of ‘three’, he will begin. One…two… _three_! ”

 

As the cannon sounded, Jack jumped to his feet along with the rest of the Hogwarts students with a cheer as Cedric entered the arena. “Diggory! Diggory! Diggory!” the crowd chanted, only to gasp as the mist clustered in the centre to dissipate with a wave of the Headmasters wand to reveal the Champions opponent.

 

“Bloody Hell!” Jack heard one of the red-heads from the World Cup cry out at the sight while Jack observed the Dragon his terrified looking boyfriend was about to face. It was a royal-blue Swedish Short-Snout that was rather bulky compared to the Dragons he had seen in the past, but then again he’d only ever seen Chinese Dragons while this one was a European breed.

 

Somehow it didn’t seem as intimidating compared to the size-shifting, intelligent ones that could speak. After all, what was there to fear from something that was all brawn and no brain?

 

“Kick it's scrawny ass, Cedric!” he cried, cupping his mouth in hope that he would be heard over the crowd and his green-faced boyfriend would snap out of his stupor.

 

The chanting of his name picked up again as Cedric snapped out of his stunned state and began ducking and weaving behind boulders of the rocky terrain, narrowly avoiding the ice blue flame spewed by the irritated Short-Snout.

 

“Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow” Bagman narrated while Jack squeaked, watching as Cedric used a quick charm to extinguish his smouldering cloak. The Hufflepuff Champion seemed to gather his courage, a determined look made its way onto his face as he gripped his wand tightly, just before jumping out from behind his hiding place and using Transfiguration to change a medium sized stone into a hyperactive Labrador.

 

The dog's loud barking and scampering around the enclosure drew the Dragons attention long enough for Cedric to try and sneak around the back of the beast, towards the golden egg.

 

“He‘s taking risks, this one!”

 

 _‘Shut the Hell up!’_ Jack mentally screamed as he leant forwards in his seat, closer to the action, as he clutched Ling’s arm tightly to the point of bruising it. Ludo Bagman’s grating voice kept drawing him out of the fight and it was sending Jack crazy! They were in an enclosed space, with only a spell keeping the crowd safe from Dragon fire, they didn’t need him to tell them what was going on right in front of their damn faces’!

 

Suddenly everything started to blur together for Jack as he watches the Dragon loose interest in the dog long enough to notice Cedric reaching its eggs before rearing up and unleashing a torrent of blinding flames at the Hufflepuff.

 

The only thing the terrified Goth could remember after that was hearing himself screeching, the sight of burning flesh and the annoying sound of Bagman’s voice before fainting.

 

“Clever move, pity it didn’t work!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short, I'm terrible at writing action scenes.  
> This is actually an extra chapter since in my original draft I skipped over the first task entirely, but I wanted to make the story more engaging and longer. I always tend to rush the plot too much so I've started adding extra chapters to my original work.  
> I hope you all like it :)


	16. Revenge and Natural Disasters

 

It was early December when a light dusting of snow began to form across the grounds of the Scottish plain. It had been barely a week since the First Task when Cedric was released from the schools' hospital wing, one side of his face still a splotchy red from his healing burns, but thankfully there was no lasting damage thanks to Madam Pomfrey‘s care.

 

Jack was kind of upset that he’d missed the rest of the First Task, mainly Fleur’s round, but at least he wasn’t the only one to faint at the sight of Cedric’s boiling face. A good dozen Beauxbaon girls had also collapsed at the same time, along with a couple Hogwarts students, so no one really noticed when he ended head-first into Ling’s lap and it wasn’t like Ling minded at all.

 

Sitting down at their table for breakfast, Jack and his friends began to dig-in to the mountains of food. They needed to finish quickly if the wanted to have time to read their mail and get to class on time, having arrived late due to Johnny oversleeping.

 

“This was not my fault” the blond defended himself as he spooned his cereal quickly into his mouth between words, glaring a Hikaru “ _Somebody_ was keeping me up late thanks to their snoring”

 

“Hay! How is it fault I‘m all stuffed up?! I caught a cold saving you from the lake!”

 

“Let‘s just agree that it‘s Peregrine Derrick‘s fault then, okay?” Ling suggested, glaring over at the 7th year Slytherin who’d pushed Johnny into the lake a couple days ago.

 

“ **Agreed** ” the three nodded, sending dirty looks over to the culprit.

 

“I've come up with a new curse if you want I could test it on him” Jack offered.

 

“What‘s it do?”

 

“Shrinks someone down to the size of a grain of rice” he explained, receiving looks of awe and horror “What?”

 

“As wicked as that would be; someone could step on him…” Johnny laughed nervously.

 

“And that‘s over-kill” Hikaru nodded “Plus, we don‘t wanna end up in Azkaban for getting another student killed”

 

“How about shrinking his underpants instead” Jack suggested, earning him evil smirks and a shared look between the group. Snickering darkly, Jack pulled out his wand and aimed it at the elder Slytherin. Hiding his action under his robes, as not to get in trouble, Jack whispered quietly “ _Subter-rice_ ”

 

As the impending screech rang out through the Great Hall all eyes turned to the sight of the Slytherin Quidditch teams Beater fell back off his seat, thrashing around as he reached down his trousers desperately, followed by the sound of fabric tearing.

 

“Mr. Derrick! What do you think you are doing?!” Professor McGonagall barked over the roaring laughter of the students, bolting from her chair and down the isles to the teen who lay bonelessly on the floor, followed by the school matron.

 

Jack quickly put away his wand as bent over the table laughing uncontrollably, only to notice Neville grinning at him from his own table. Smirking, the Goth gave the Gryffindor a cocky two-fingered salute before giving Ling a low-five under the table.

 

As Professor McGonagall dragged the semi-conscious teen out of the Hall the daily owl post began flying in and dropping off mail to the eagerly waiting students. 

 

Clumsily catching a letter from his family’s tiny Negros-Scops owl dropped down onto the Goths head, it’s small fluffy form nestling into his spikes. “Hay! Quit it, you demented little lint-ball!” Jack scolded, swatting at the bird messing with his hair, only to be bitten in response “Ow!!!” he whined, tearfully sucking on his bleeding finger and giving Johnny a pitiful, pleading look.

 

“Honestly, Jack” Johnny sighed with a roll of his eyes as he reached up and easily plucked the small bird from the others head before placing it down on the table. “This is the third time this week! What did you bloody do to the poor thing?”

 

“Nothing! Animals just hate me!” Jack sulked, flipping the letter over in his hands “It‘s why I‘m failing Care of Magical Creatures”

 

“What about Dragon?” Johnny frowned, referring to the Goths beloved cat as he petted the tiny owl.

 

“Dragon only likes Jack because he treats him like a King” Ling grinned before turning to the red-head “Why don‘t you just treat all animals like that?”

 

“No way” Jack scoffed as he tears open the letter “Only Dragon deserves that sort of treatment” he states seriously before reading the neatly written letter.

 

* * *

 

_Dear Jackie_

 

_How are you doing at Hogwarts? I hope you are having fun and making plenty of friends there. How are Fleur and Gabrielle doing? Your Aunt Apolline tells me Fleur was one of the Champions, why did you not write and tell me!? How did she do during the First Task?_

 

_Your Father is still at an excavation in Egypt and doesn’t think he will be able to make it home for Christmas break, but I have made sure not to schedule any photo shoots for that time so I should be home to spend the holiday with you._

 

_Once you get home we’ll go shopping since your Head of House has owled me to let me know that you’ll need some dress robes for the Yule Ball._

 

_It’ll be fun, maybe we can make an outing out of it and visit Paris for a shopping trip and take your cousins with us!_

 

_Have fun and see you soon._

_Love and kisses from Mummy~_

 

* * *

 

Jack’s cheeks flustered slightly from embarrassment after reading the last part but shrugged it off as his Mum being her normal, overly affectionate self.

 

“Another love-letter?” Ling asked teasingly, noticing the Goths light blush.

 

“No!” Jack snorted “It’s from my Mum. My Dad‘s not coming home for Christmas since he‘s too busy with a new excavation, no surprise there” he shrugged, his Dad hardly ever made it to Christmas; since he was full-blooded Chinese and didn’t really celebrate the holiday. Jack just hoped that he didn’t send him another haunted relic “She‘s going on about taking me shopping for some ‘Yule Ball’ or something”

 

“What’s the Yule Ball?” Hikaru asked in confusion, looking up from his own mail as Johnny squeaked in terror.

 

* * *

 

It was a good couple hour's later at the end of Charms class that the three other teens finally got the answer to their question as Johnny had clammed up upon questioning, turning a sickly green upon pressing from either Ling, Jack or Hikaru.

 

“Well aren’t you all lucky” Professor Flitwick grinned over his podium at the class, standing on his tall stack of books “The Yule Ball is swiftly approaching and only 4th years and elder are allowed to participate!”

 

Glancing over at his blond friend, Jack watched in fascination as he paled dramatically while the short Professor spoke. What the Hell was wrong with him?

 

“Now, the Yule Ball is a tradition during the Triwizard Tournament and is a very good opportunity for us all to get to know our foreign guests better” Flitwick continued unabated in excitement “It shall be held at eight o’clock on Christmas day and finish at midnight. Formal dress-wear is mandatory, but it‘s a wonderful chance to have a little fun!”

 

Johnny slowly raised his hand shakily, looking worse with each passing minute.

 

“Yes, Mr. Bends?”

 

“Is attendance mandatory, Professor Flitwick?”

 

“Not officially, Mr Bends, but attendance _**is**_ highly encouraged” the Professor stated firmly, giving the blond a look that said that he better not think about skipping the Ball “I wouldn’t want it to be Ravenclaw that lets the school down. Would you?”

 

“No, Professor” Johnny muttered in a sulking manner, staring down at his desk, hunching his shoulders up to his ears.

 

“Good. Now I expect you all to come here tomorrow for a House meeting to disguise this more at one o‘clock” Professor Flitwick smiled before waving towards the door “Class is dismissed. Have a pleasant day”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Once they made it to Ravenclaw tower, following behind the rushing blond the entire way, the three Asian teens pulled Johnny into their room and surrounded him. They weren’t going to let him escape their questioning again.

 

“Well?” Hikaru asked, raising an eyebrow. He was the most concerned of all for the Brit since he’d known Johnny for years, been his best friend for just as long and he’d never seen him act in such a way before.

 

“What?” Johnny sulked stubbornly, not looking at any of them.

 

“You’re acting really weird, bro” Jack stated bluntly, sitting down casually on the bed next to the blond, Dragon trotting over and sprawling lazily over his lap “You looked like you were gonna puke since finding out about the dance” he shrugged.

 

“Nothing‘s wrong. I‘m fine”

 

“You tried to get out of doing a school activity” Ling scoffed, crossing his arms as he looked down at the other “You usually ask for extra work, Johnny. Did you really think we wouldn’t notice you trying to get out of doing something Flitwick told us to?”

 

“You take loads of extracurricular subjects, Johnny. What’s so scary about a party in comparison to that?”

 

“What was that?” Jack asked, leaning closer as Johnny muttered quietly under his breath “Didn’t quite catch that”

 

“I‘m a terrible dancer!” Johnny admitted loudly, face bright red in embarrassment.

 

“So what?”

 

“You don’t understand! I‘m not just terrible, I‘m the natural disaster of dancing! I broke my old dance teachers foot once!” Johnny explained franticly, waving his hands more energetically than Jack had ever seen him before.

 

“Then don’t dance. Duh!”

 

“It‘s not that simple! I've read about the Yule Ball before; all students attending are expected to dance after the Champions at least once!” he said looking more depressed with every passing word “I‘m gonna make an utter fool of myself! My reputation is bloody doomed!”

 

“Calm down!” Jack ordered, moving Dragon off his lap as he stood and put his hand on his hips “We‘ll sort this out”

 

“How!?” Johnny asked pathetically, obviously having no faith in the Goth as he fell back onto the bed dramatically.

 

“Are you really that stupid?” Jack scoffed, smirking down at the blond “We‘re in a _magic_ school! How else do you expect to solve your problem?! Magic ofcourse!”

 


	17. Magical Revelations

 

 

It was an incredibly cold morning in China, the Spicer Manner had a heavy layer of snow blanketed across its surfaces.

 

The Xiaolin Monks had been visiting the mansion regularly for the last couple months, hoping to catch Jack there only to be turned away each time by the estate's maid and told to come back when they had an appointment, not that they knew _how_ to get one.

 

They needed to apologise, they’d gone too far and caused the albino to give up his life-long dream. Even if they didn’t agree with his dream, they had no right to destroy them.

 

Making their way up to the front door, wading through the snow, Clay gave the oak a swift knock that echoed through the entire building. Moments later one of the large double doors swung open to reveal someone other than the maid they were used to.

 

The woman that stood before them was beautiful, with long blond hair. She was wearing an expensive looking black dress and appeared to be in her late twenties. They could tell she wasn’t native to China, appearing European as she gave them the once-over with her deep blue eyes with a judgmental frown “Muggles? What do you want?”

 

None of the Monks knew what ‘muggle’ meant so they chose not to question it in case it wasn’t an insult. They didn’t want to offend the woman who was obviously not part of the Spicer staff and was their best chance of getting to see Jack.

 

“Yeah, um, we’re looking for Jack. Is he in?” Rai asked, blushing darkly as he realised that he was eye-level with the gorgeous woman’s heavily exposed cleavage.

 

“Yes! We have come to apologise to Jack Spicer for the yelling of names!” Omi announced loudly, confusing the woman.

 

“He means ‘Calling him names’” Kimiko translated.

 

“Oh, I know you!” the blond exclaimed, her perfect face turning murderous, terrifying the four teens “You all are those Monks my little Jackie told me about! Well, no! Jackie isn’t home and he won't be for some time” she sneered, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she stared down at them “Even if he was I wouldn’t allow him anywhere near a bunch of filthy muggles”

 

“Okay, Lady! That’s it! I don’t know what a ‘Muggle’ is, but I’m not stupid and know that you're insulting us!” Kimiko screeched, fighting against Clay’s hold that was preventing her from strangling the woman.

 

“Yeah! And since when has Jack not been ‘allowed’ to talk to us?! I mean, if you has a problem with us before why not stop him then?!” Rai scolded.

 

“Because when my baby finally got excepted into Hogwarts he gained the respect of the entire family and became the Spicer heir!” She boasted with a proud look “He is the pride of the Spicer family and I will not have our Pure-Blood name tainted by Muggles, Mud-Bloods, Squibs or Blood-Traitors!”

 

“Man, she‘s crackers” Raimundo muttered to the yellow skinned Monk who looked up at him curiously.

 

“How is she a square snack product?” the small Dragon of Water asked, confused beyond belief.

 

Once Kimiko calmed down, while ignoring Omi’s comment, and turning back to Jack’s mother “Okay, I‘ll be polite” she said, taking a calming breath “We only want to tell Jack We're sorry, then we‘ll leave him alone. If we don’t Omi‘s most likely to get depressed and do something stupid, so **_please_** tell us when he‘s going to be back”

 

She looked down at the small, yellow child before signing “He’ll be coming home for the Christmas Holiday‘s on the 19th” she stated before slamming the door in the teen’s faces rudely.

 

After a moment of shocked silence, Kimiko exploded “I can‘t believe that Cow! Now I understand why Jack is they way he is!” she cried in frustration as Clay began to lead her away from the mansion and into the portal Rai created with the Golden Tiger Claws, unaware that they had been watched the entire time.

 

* * *

 

In the Mountains of Nowhere, deep within the Dragon War Lords lair, seated upon his throne was Chase Young. He had been once again spying on the Xiaolin Monks and had heard the whole discussion.

 

Not that it was anything new for him to watch the self-righteous teens since he’d known they would find his minion eventually and he’d been right. The Spicer matron had said some very interesting things while speaking with the Monks, not only that but Chase couldn’t help and notice how unnaturally beautiful she had been. The Dragon Lord knew magic when he saw it, he had been surrounded in it for 1500 years after all, and Spicer’s Mother had been saturated in it, it was practically covering her in an alluring aura.

 

It explained how Spicer had been able to open Wuya’s Puzzle Box and used the Shen Gong Wu since mundane mortals usually couldn’t activate them, but if at least one of the boy's parents had a magical ability it would explain everything. Funny how Spicer hadn’t shown an inclination to the mystic arts though…

  
_Hogwarts_. Chase realised in utter disbelief, ancient memories resurfacing from the depths of his extensive memory.

 

It was hazy, but he recalled a group of young Witches and Warlocks banding together to create a place for the newest generations to learn the arts in relative safety. It was during a time when magic users were few and far between due to rising prejudices and diluted bloodlines. A time when a bastardised version of magic was taking root and the old ways were slowly being forgotten.

 

Spicer was attending an Academy for magic users…

 

His minion was becoming more interesting with each passing day. The fury Chase had been gathering against the boy due to his constant absence that had been building for months dissipated almost instantly at the revelation.

 

Things had probably changed in the last 1000 years so maybe it was about time to re-introduce himself into the mortal magic community.

 

After all, his little minion had practically gift-wrapped an opportunity for the Dragon Lord to make new, hopefully powerful, allies and resources that the forces of good wouldn’t see coming.

 

His Spicer had finally started to show his worth.

 

 

 


	18. Jack and the Magic Dancing Shoes

 

  
“There‘s no way we‘ll find anything in time” Johnny stressed, pacing behind Jack as he flipped through a stack of charm books. They’d been in the Library all morning looking for a solution to the British teen's problem, it was only a week until the end of term and they had a House meeting in a couple hours.

 

“Calm down” Ling smiled, looking up from his own book “We‘ll find something eventually”

 

“But even if we find something I still need to find someone to go to the Ball with me!”

 

“You‘re right” Hikaru groaned, dumping another stack of books on their table “We‘re doomed. There‘s no way we‘ll have time to find a date”

 

“Speak for yourselves” Jack smirked smugly, grabbing another book “I have a boyfriend. That means I automatically have a date”

 

“It‘s funny how the Champions, who have the most to do, have already got someone lined up to go with them” Hikaru sulked, slumping down next to Ling and pulling a large, dusty book closer.

 

“Other than Cedric, how do you know if the others have dates?”

 

“Cause Krum is two rows down, all up in Granger‘s space” Hikaru shrugged, gesturing behind him to the back of the Library “You could cut the sexual tension with a butter knife”

 

“What about Fleur?” Johnny asked, falling into the seat next to Jack who looked at him in disbelief, raising a questioning eyebrow.

 

“She‘s **_Fleur_**. Duh!”

 

“And I heard our Quidditch team Captain was going with her” Hikaru quickly added.

 

“Wow, that was fast. Roger must have asked her as soon as Flitwick announced the Ball” Ling grinned teasingly “Ya‘ know what they say about fast guys, right?”

 

“They finish quickly?” Jack snickered at the dirty joke before turning back to Hikaru “What about that Potter kid?”

 

“He‘s been mooning over Cho all year, but he‘s too shy to ask her so far” he shrugged just as Jack suddenly slammed the book he’d been reading down, open in the centre of the table with a triumphant sound. The three others jumping back in shock.

 

“Ah Ha! _‘Verusa Sua’_ a handy charm that causes inanimate objects to dance independently. For a specific dance routine, simply say the dace‘s name before the incantation” the Goth read, running a finger under the text.

 

“I recognise that spell” Johnny muttered, his brow frowning in thought “My mum uses it on her cake toppings…”

 

“Yeah, so? If we cast it on both of your shoes at once it might work” Jack shrugged “It won't make you a brilliant dancer, but hopefully you won't be a ‘Natural Disaster’ anymore”

 

“It‘s worth a shot” Hikaru shrugged in an easy-going manner, giving Johnny an encouraging smile “It couldn’t make you any worse”

 

* * *

 

When the group of Ravenclaw’s arrived at Professor Flitwick’s classroom for the House meeting they were greeted by the sight of all of their Housemates between the 4th and 7th year huddled together in the cleared out Charms class, the tables and chairs had been pushed up against the walls for some reason and their Head of House ushering them all to find a place to sit.

 

Sharing a look of confusing with his friends, Jack shrugged before hopping up onto one of the tables, wondering what was going on. The re-decorating seemed to serve no real purpose that he could think of, it just seemed counterproductive since it would have to be put back for class next week.

 

“The Yule Ball…” Professor Flitwick began, once everyone had arrived and taken a seat, looking around the classroom, smiling at all of his attentive students “Has been a tradition of the Triwizard Tournament since it first began” He continued, pacing around the centre of the room just as Filch wheeled in a comically large phonograph “As Hogwarts is hosting and you all will be representing our school, I expect all of you to be one you best behaviours and put your best foot forward. Literally”

 

Jack couldn’t help but snicker quietly behind his hand as he realised what was happening and glanced over at Johnny just in time to witness the blond turn a pasty white as it also dawned on him what the half-Dwarf was about to make them do.

 

“As you all have probably guessed the Yule Ball requires for you all to dance” he cheered, arms raised enthusiastically only for the majority of male students to groan and sink down in their seats “And today I will be teaching you all the traditional opening dance of the Yule Ball. The four Champions will begin the Ball with this dance before the everyone else joins in”

 

“Now, I’ll need some volunteers so Miss… Change and Mr… Furuya!” Flitwick selected randomly from the hesitant teens, resulting in Johnny slumping in relief as Hikaru was chosen and not him “Could you come up here, please?”

 

Cho quickly stood up eagerly with a nervous expression while Hikaru flashed a cocky smirk before stepping in front of her and confidently taking up a traditional waltz stance.

 

“Well now!” the Professor grinned “It seems that Mr. Furuya has some experience with classical dance! As you all can see he has taken Miss. Change’s right hand him his left and placed his other hand on her waist”

 

Ling joined in with a couple other boys and wolf-whistled “Woo, looks like Hikaru‘s busting out his best moves!”

 

“Hush now” Professor Flitwick waved them off before gesturing for Filch to start the phonograph “Now, Mr. Furuya will take the lead, starting in a traditional waltz, and… One, two, three! One, two, three!” he chanted, waving his arms to the music as the couple began to sway “Once the music picks up in tempo Mr. Furuya will lift Miss. Change by the waist and spin her clockwise”

 

“That kinda’ sucks for someone with a big dance partner” Jack whispered, feeling a little sorry for any of the large girls who’d been invited to the ball, way-to-go making them feel insecure.

 

“What about the guys trying to lift them?” Ling snickered back quietly.

 

“Everyone please come together!” Flitwick called out as he stepped to the side, away from the gathering teenagers.

 

The girls practically leapt from their seats as the boys seemed to sink deeper into theirs while Johnny almost fainted as the blood rushed from his face “Hide me!” he squeaked, ducking behind Jack.

 

“Seriously? Ugh!” Jack rolled his eyes and shrugged the blond off “This is a _Dance Class_ , everyone already expects each other to be crap. It‘s the actual Ball you have to worry about” he scoffed before jumping up and turning to Ling “Be Cedric‘s stand-in for me, please?”

 

Unable to resist Jack’s puppy-eyes, Ling grinned before leading the Goth into the centre of the room and leaving Johnny to try and hide under one of the tables.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title inspired by a comment left by DeadJane!


	19. Ice Skates and Stereotypes

                                                                                

 

Jack loved the snow, and the crystallised rain that blanketed the whole of the Scottish Highlands was much more beautiful than what normally settled near his home in China. The way it lay undisturbed across the rolling plains was almost unearthly.

 

The Goth had always preferred snow to any other weather, probably because snow meant it was winter and winter meant less sunlight. As an albino less sun was always preferred, it let him spend more time outside without fearing getting sunburnt so much. Another reason was because it was when he got the most attention from his parents, due to all the competitions he used to enter and win. Skiing, Figure-Skating and Snowboarding to name a few. The only physical activities he was ever good at, the only times he felt graceful and in control while growing up.

 

True, his mother had made him take Ballet and Gymnastics to try and improve his coordination, but winter sports were the only things he’d mastered.

 

“This is crazy, Jackie” Fleur giggled as her and a group of her friends followed the Goth out of the castle, each of them carrying a pair of Ice Skates.

 

“Why? The lake has been frozen over for nearly a week!” Jack grinned “I've been testing it every day and it's in perfect condition for skating. Safe as any Ice Rink!”

 

“ ’ow exciting!” Gabrielle giggled, skipping happily “Skating over a lake with a giant squid in it!”

 

“Exactly! None of my friends wanted to join us; too scared” Jack scoffed “You‘d think they‘d jump at the chance! I've only been here since September and I've been _dying_ to try this out!”

 

“What about Cedric? ‘e‘s a Champion, ‘e shouldn’t be scared after facing a Dragon!”

 

“That’s probably why he doesn’t want to face a giant squid to” he shrugged casually before changing the subject “Anyway, have you worked out that egg yet? Cedric‘s really getting frustrated about his”

 

“No, but we ‘ave plenty of time-”

 

“Will You Go To The Ball With Me?!” a ginger-haired teen screamed at Fleur randomly as they walked past, scaring the daylights out of the group.

 

“Eeek!” Jack squeaked in surprise, dropping his ice-skates as he raised his hands to ‘defend’ himself while the French girls merely gave the ginger kid a ‘really?’ look.

 

After a moment, the boy who Jack finally recognised from the Quidditch World Cup, seemed to realise what he had done, losing all colour in his face, before sprinting away like the hounds of hell were on his heels. A bunch of Gryffindor girls hurrying after him in concern.

 

“Okay…” Jack muttered, raising an eyebrow sceptically “That was random”

 

“Totally!” A sudden voice from behind him agreed, causing Jack to jump in surprise and spun around to find to find a grinning Hikaru.

 

“Don’t **_do_ ** that!”

 

“You’re a very vocal person, aren’t you Jack?” Ling asked suggestively as he and Johnny came up behind Hikaru, who’s excited grin never wavered.

 

Bending down to pick up his skates, Jack chose to ignore Ling’s innuendo and raised his eyebrow at the Japanese boy's creepy grin “Fine. I‘ll bite; what’s with that face?”

 

“I‘m going with Cho to the Ball!” Hikaru blurted out, pumping his fist in the air.

 

“Cho? She must have been really impressed with your dance moves”

 

“I know, right!?”

 

“Jackie” Gabrielle butted into the conversation, looking up at her cousin with a ‘kicked-puppy’ look “Aren’t we going skating?” she asked in a manipulatively sweet voice causing Jack to easily cave into her demands.

 

“Yes, of course! Have you guys changed your minds about coming with?”

 

“No way! I don’t wanna get eaten by the squid!” Hikaru waved him off “I’m too gorgeous to die that way, besides, I have a date to be alive for!”

 

“We‘ll see ya‘ at lunch, right? We gotta pack for the Holiday tonight so we decided to get together for a ‘goodbye’ lunch” Johnny asked as Gabrielle began to drag Jack away.

 

“Sounds cool! I‘ll invite some other friends and we‘ll make a party out of it!”

 

* * *

 

After a couple hours on the ice, Jack was exhausted. His cheeks stained a flustered pink from all the exercise and cold wind, but in the end, Fleur still had to drag him away from the Lake since he didn’t want to leave.

 

Surprisingly, their little outing had managed to inspire some of the other students to join them on the ice, even some of the Hogwarts students.

 

Falling onto the bench at the Ravenclaw table, Jack began stripping himself out of his winter-wear “Bloody freezing out there” he grumbled, dumping his scarf on the table “I think I have frostbite!”

 

“It’s your own fault” Johnny shrugged, not looking up from his dancing cutlery, clutching his wand tightly in concentration “You were out there for hours after all”

 

“Time flies when having fun” Ling grinned as Jack nodded, removing his gloves “So… Who‘d you invite?” he asked the Goth.

 

“Huh? Oh, I invited Cedric when he was hanging out around the lake earlier, but he‘s with his friends; his House is having a party in their common room. He asked me to come, but I‘m spending tonight with you guys” he shrugged “I also asked Neville. I don’t know if he‘ll come though”

 

“Longbottom?” Hikaru asked as he arrived late, followed shortly by Fleur and Gabrielle.

 

“Neville is very shy” Gabrielle explained, smoothing down her freshly changed dress, having gotten the one she was wearing earlier wet from the snow.

 

“Where've you been?” Jack asked Hikaru, who was watching Johnny practice the dancing charm.

 

“What?”

 

“Why are you late?”

 

“Oh, I was walking Cho to the Owlery” he shrugged “She wanted my contact info”

 

“Why?” Johnny asked with a jealous pout, still ticked off that he still hadn’t found a date to the Ball “To co-ordinate your outfits or something?”

 

“No” Hikaru scoffed good-naturedly “I’m gonna wear plain dress-robes. If she wants to get me a corsage that matches her dress, that’s her responsibility”

 

“Be happy you can wear a normal dress-robe” Jack sulked, tapping his fork against his plate, resting his head in his other hand “My mom‘s going to drag me all over Paris for mine”

 

“Don’t sulk, Jackie” Fleur smiled excitedly “ ‘omosexual men are meant to love shopping. You can ‘elp me find 'ze perfect dress!”

 

“Stereotyping, much?” Jack questioned, raising a sceptical eyebrow “I don’t like shopping. It’s boring and _exhausting_ ”

 

“Your mum one of those over-enthusiastic shopper types?” Ling asked with a knowing look “My sister is like that too. She thinks just because I like guys I have some infinity for fashion or something!”

 

“I know right!?” Jack groaned, throwing his arms up before dropping his head down on the table in defeat.

 

“Don’t worry, Jackie” Gabrielle whispered, patting his arm to try and comfort him “I‘ll be 'zere with you. I ‘ate dress shopping too”

 

“But you’re a **_French_ ** girl!” Hikaru stated in disbelief.

 

“Stereotyping, much?” the 11-year-old stated bluntly.

 

 


	20. Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon!

 

 

“You‘ll miss me, right?” Cedric asked, sitting as close to his boyfriend as he dared on the bench in their compartment, not wanting to be in reach of the Goth’s possessive cat’s claws “You‘ll write to me too?”

 

“I‘ll be seeing you in a week!” Jack scoffed with an exaggerated roll of his eyes while rubbing Dragon’s ears “By the time my owl makes it back to England from China it‘ll time for the Yule Ball!”

 

“Psst! You’re supposed to lie!” Cedric’s friend Kate ‘whispered’.

 

“And _that‘s_ why you don’t have a boyfriend” Tim snorted “Lying is the worst thing you can do in a relationship”

 

“P- _lease~_ ” Kate smirked, dragging out her words dramatically, flicking her hair over her shoulder in a ‘sassy’ manner “You know nothing. Little white lies are fine, it keeps a relationship interesting”

 

“Bollocks!” Donald snorted, throwing a handful of chocolate frogs at the brunette “Girls aren’t like that. They don’t play games like that!.. Right, Red?”

 

“Why are you asking _me_?!” Jack asked, throwing his hands up in the air “I’m gay.  Not a girl!”

 

“Yeah, and Jack likes me too much to lie to me” Cedric grinned, placing an arm around Jack’s shoulders, only to be scratched by his cat “ _OW_!” he cried, snatching his hand back.

 

“Dragon? What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Jack asked, picking up the tomcat and looked at him worriedly.

 

“Him?! I’m the one hurt!” Cedric pouted, sucking his injured finger.

 

“It‘s a scratch” Jack waved him off, tapping the cat's nose to see if he had a temperature “He might be ill! He‘s never lashed out before! Dragon’s normally so cool and collected!” he panicked, all the while Dragon continued to glare at Cedric with a look that clearly said _‘Don’t touch my property!’_

 

“You seem alright… Eep!” he squeaked, quickly putting Dragon back down, realising he’d been manhandling him “Sorry”

 

“Why does it feel like that owner-pet relationship is the wrong way around?” Donald whispered to Tim who nodded back grinning, finding it hilarious.

 

“Seriously though, Cedric” Jack began, continuing to stroke the silky black fur “If you can't even handle my cat, how do you plan to deal with my mother? Oh, and she‘ll be sending you an invitation to our annual New Year party”

 

“You’re from China, right? So which New Year are we talking about?”

 

“My mom‘s a socialite; we celebrate both just to have more parties” Jack shrugged “We‘ll be back at Hogwarts during Chinese New Year so it‘ll probably be on January 1st”

 

“That must be fun” Cedric smiled fondly, the sting in his finger finally fading “Your parents always throwing parties. Never a dull moment in the Spicer home I guess”

 

“Hell no!” Jack snorted, glancing out the window at the swiftly approaching city of London “I hate posh parties! My mum always invites all her ‘well-to-do’ and ‘upper-crust’ friends that are always super boring or grabby! Since I turned 10 I always hid in my Lair”

 

“…Your ‘Lair’?”

 

“Yeah, I call it my ‘Lab’ now though” Jack shrugged “It’s where I do experiments and stuff”

 

“You‘re are so weird, Red” Tim stated bluntly as the train jolted to a stop in platform 9 ¾.

 

“Your point?” Jack grinned cheekily as he stood up, grabbing his luggage and left the compartment with the elder teens quickly trying to follow after him. Dragon sprawled across his shoulders.

 

Stepping onto the platform, Jack waved over at his friends who got off the train farther down. Since he’d spent the entire last day of term with them he’d agreed to travel back with Cedric and his friends, since that was only fair for everyone. Too bad the compartments weren’t bigger or he’d of invited Ling, Johnny and Hikaru to join them.

 

“Need a lift anywhere, Red?” Kate asked as she and the others got off the train behind him “My dad owns a sweet mini-van, so there’s plenty of room for both you and Tim”

 

“Nah, I‘m only heading to the Leaky Cauldron so I can Floo home” Jack shrugged.

 

“Alright then, see you guys at the Ball!” Kate and Tim waved as they walked through the magical barrier.

 

“Well, I‘m off” Donald shrugged “What about you, Cedric?”

 

“I've got to wait for my dad. I‘ll see you Christmas night, okay?”

 

“Yeah, bye!” Donald nodded, heading towards his patiently waiting parents.

 

“Do you want me to wait with you?” Jack asked, looking around the quickly emptying platform; everyone obviously wanting to get home to start enjoying their holiday. It would be rather boring for the older teen to wait around alone.

 

“Yeah” Cedric grinned, sneaking an arm around the Goth’s waist, careful not to wake the slumbering cat on his shoulders.

 

After only a couple of minutes of waiting the comfortable silence that had settled over the two was broken by a surprisingly familiar voice echoing off the stone walls “Jackie~! Honey!”

  
“M-Mom?!” Jack squeaked, his head whipping around to see the busty bond emerged through the barrier, their family butler following behind her, arms full of high-end shopping bags.

 

“Oh, Sweetheart! Thank Merlin we didn’t miss you! I was worried you would have left already!” she squealed, pulling the teen into a suffocation hug, his head smothered into her ample chest. Dragon tumbling off his shoulders with an indignant yowl and hiss.

 

“W-What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice muffled by her body, trying to push her away as she stroked his hair possessively.

 

“I wanted to surprise you! It also gave me a great chance to do some shopping in London” Lucy stated honestly before noticing the nervously fidgeting Cedric “And who is this handsome young man?” she smiled flirtatiously, offering him her hand.

 

“Cedric.  _MY_ boyfriend” Jack growled, batting his mum’s hand away before leaning down and picking Dragon back up, stroking his ears apologetically.

 

“Oh!” Lucy grinned proudly “Well done, Honey” she said, patting the Goth’s head, resulting in both teens turning a bright red.

 

“Mum~!” Jack whined just as a tall, ruddy-faced man jogged over to the group.

 

“Cedric, M‘boy!”

 

“Hi, Dad”

 

“Sorry, I‘m late, son. I got held up at the Ministry” the man explained just before Lucy held her hand out to him quickly.

 

“Good evening. Lucy Spicer” she introduced herself “I was just meeting your son”

 

“A-Amos Diggory” Amos stuttered in confusion and awe at the beauty speaking to him.

 

“Pleasure” Lucy nodded before turning back to the incredibly embarrassed teens “I just found out our boys are currently courting, isn’t that sweet?”

 

“Y-yes -Wait. My Cedric and your lad?…”

 

“Yes! Jackie was just telling me. I was honestly surprised he hadn’t told me before now, you’d think he could at least mention it in one of his letters…” she stated in a passive-aggressive tone as she stared the two down “I’m _sure_ it's only a recent development. Right, Jackie?”

 

“It’s only been a couple months” Jack muttered in a sulking manner.

 

“I asked him out not long after being selected as a Champion” Cedric explained, beginning to understand why Jack had been nervous about him meeting his mother. Yeah, the woman was gorgeous but somehow kinda scary with her piercing blue eyes that seemed to stare right into his very soul.

 

“Two months and not a word? Hmm..” Lucy smiled tightly “Well, you’re a fine catch, Cedric, dear. I suppose you will be escorting my Jackie to the Yule Ball then?”

 

“Y-yes, ma‘am!”

 

“Excellent. Well, I also expect to see you both at the Spicer New Year party, we can’t have these two courting without at least meeting properly. Right, Mr. Diggory?”

 

“O-of course!” Amos agreed, slightly overwhelmed by the entire situation.

 

“I told Cedric about it on the way here” Jack sighed, easing Dragon back up onto his shoulders.

 

“Fabulous! I hope to see you then, Mr. Diggory, and your partner of course” Lucy smiled, patting the stunned man's arm before heading back towards the barrier “Walter, put Mr. Diggory and his family on the invitation list!”

 

“Right away, Mistress Spicer” their butler nodded, following closely behind her while Jack turned back to Cedric with an awkward and apologetic smile.

 

“I’m sorry about her. She gets like that when she‘s left out of the loop about anything. I‘ll see ya‘ in a week, ‘kay?” he asked, standing on his tip-toes and kissing the older teens cheek quickly before he could chicken out.

 

“Come along, Jack!”

 

“Coming!” Jack squeaked before jogging after his mother, waving over his shoulder at his flustered boyfriend and his gobsmacked father behind.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for how late this chapter is!  
> Not only have I had writers-block, but I've also started doing voluntary work and my older sister gave birth! This week has been absolutely mad for me, lol.


	21. A Lizard in the Coop

 

 

Re-introducing himself into the ‘Wizarding Community’ was rather easy, pathetically so. No one even questioned him as he strolled casually into one of their isolated areas, dressed in full Armour, receiving barely even a second glance. It was almost as if they were inviting someone to invade them, even Spicer could probably take them over in a couple months. Passing himself off as one of his own descendants was even simpler, the creatures running the banks didn’t even question him as he required access to the old bank account that he’d opened a couple centuries ago, handing his key over without a word. They seemed more suspicious of him than the humans, Chase suspected they knew he wasn’t who he claimed, but they also seemed more in touch with magic that other species and probably knew they shouldn’t question him. They could tell he would be able to destroy them all in seconds.

 

Not to mention his ‘ancestor’ being present during the founding of the community gave him some leeway with them since being from an ancient and powerful ‘family’ seemed to make him automatically a part of the communities high society, which seemed to come with extra privileges. Hopefully, it would also enable him to gain some capable allies.

 

In a way, it was astounding to think that this was the real place that his Spicer truly belonged to. He had always suspected that Spicer was different due to his ability to use Shen-Gong-Wu unlike normal mortals, but it had never even crossed his mind that the weakling would come from such a place saturated in magic.

 

He only had to walk down one of their market streets to witness numerous examples of misused magic.

 

Magic is a sacred, mystical art, no matter how diluted or bastardised, and he’d seen these mortals use it for idiotic and frivolous reasons. But he had to admit that the more he observed them the more he noticed some useful and inventive means that they used it.

 

Though be them few and far between.

 

He could only hope that his Spicer was being taught some of those useful spells and not only the redundant ones that could easily be done by hand.

 

But first Chase needed to integrate himself into the high society more so he could find a reason to visit the communities Academy and see his minion. A trip to the British Wizarding Ministry seemed to be in order first.

 

* * *

 

Jack had missed his home during his time at Hogwarts. Mainly the access to technology, his bots and the internet above all else. He couldn’t count how many times a random question had popped into his head and how frustrated he’d been when he remembered that he couldn’t just pull out his phone and find the answer on Google.

 

It was more than a little irritating at how dependent he’d been on technology and honestly still was.

 

That was probably how Pure-Blood students feel during their time away from Hogwarts when they aren’t allowed to use magic. Wizards were as dependent on magic as Muggles are on technology.

 

“Honestly, Jack!” Lucy scolded, dragging the teen away from his computer and out of his lab “I haven’t seen you in four months and the first thing you do is when you get home is hide in the basement?!”

 

“…Homework?” Jack suggested pathetically as his mother shoved him down into one of the dining room chairs.

 

“Well you’re not going to find anything on the internet to help you” Lucy snorted, seeing past Jack’s weak lie “Your school books or our Library should have all the information you need”

 

“Fine” Jack grumbled, sulking back in his chair as a maid poured him a cup of tea.

 

“Now let's catch-up, shall we?” Lucy asked sweetly, taking a sip of her own tea “Narcissa told me that you haven’t been spending any time with Draco. Why not? I thought you liked him”

 

“Yeah, well, we don’t really cross paths often” Jack shrugged, playing with a stack of sugar cubes, balancing them on top of each other “We‘re in different Houses after all, and in class we usually just hang out with our own friends”

 

“Don’t you like him anymore, Sweety?” she asked, slightly concerned for some reason Jack couldn’t be bothered to think about.

 

“Nah, he‘s cool on his own, but he‘s kind of a prat when he‘s with his Slytherin friends. Besides, my friends are okay with my morbid sense of humour, but I doubt they would put up with how much of a jerk Draco can be too”

 

“Well, could you try and make more of an effort to at least talk to him from now on?” she asked hopefully “The Spicer’s and Malfoy‘s have always been close, you fathers aunt even married one, and I would hate for you to break this tradition”

 

“Alright” Jack sighed, subtly rolling his eyes. It wasn’t like Draco had sought him out either, he hoped the blond was getting a lecture too since it wouldn’t be fair if he was the only one getting a tongue lashing “Can we talk about something _else_ now?”

 

“I wouldn’t have to bug you about this if you actually responded to my letters every now and then” Lucy stated bluntly “So, you and this Cedric boy?…”

 

“Ugh!” the Goth groaned, dropping his head down on the table heavily “Not again, Mom! I told you we've only been going out for a couple months, it’s not like we‘re really serious yet”

 

“Well, he seems like a good lad anyway” Lucy smiled, patting the teens head affectionately “Very handsome. Just make sure to use protection, okay?”

 

“Mum! No! Just… No!” Jack snapped, blushing darkly at her insinuation “I just said we weren’t serious! We haven’t even started making-out yet!”

 

“It’s best to be prepared, Sweetheart” Lucy giggle teasingly “You _are_ a teenage boy after all. I’ll have Walter buy some condoms while we’re dress shopping just-in-case”

 

_**“MUM!!!”** _

 

 

 


	22. Putain l'enfer

 

 

“Hei Headband” Rai read aloud from the scroll for the rest of the Xiaolin Warriors that road upon Dojo’s back as he flew them towards the recently activated Wu “‘A Wu that grants the user the ability to read their opponent's thoughts’. that sounds awesome!”

 

“Dang right it does” Clay nodded, holding his hat on tightly as a powerful gust of wind blew past “Being able to know our enemies next move before they make it sounds mighty fine”

 

"Just sounds like a more 'handsfree' version of the Mind Reader Conch to me" Kimiko shrugged unimpressed.

 

"Well after making so many Shen Gong Wu you cant blame Dashi for running out of ideas!" Dojo scoffed, defending his old master.

 

“Yes, yes. Very understandable, but let us collect it with haste” Omi declared impatiently “Jack Spicer has been home for many days now and we have yet to see him!”

 

“ ‘Many days’? It’s only been like three days, Omi” Kimiko rolled her eyes at the little yellow monk “We still have fifteen more. The school term doesn’t start until the 4th”

 

“I do not understand why these prisons allow it‘s captives to take holidays and I do not wish to tempt the fates and have them change their minds and take Jack Spicer back early!”

 

“Rai…” Kimiko growled, glaring over at the sniggering Brazilian teen “Did you tell Omi that schools are the same as prisons?”

 

“Maybe?…”

 

“Fine, whatever” she snorted in begrudge agreement “But you’re going to be the one to set him straight since you’re the one to mess him up!” Kimiko snarled quietly so the smallest monk didn’t hear her.

 

“Alright, kids, hold on! the Wu is close so I‘m going in for a landing!” Dojo called back to them as he began to descend.

 

“Paris?! Are you kidding me?!” the Japanese teen cried out as the Dragon looped around the Ifle Tower before touching down “We‘ll never find the Hei Headband here!”

 

“Why not?” Omi asked as he jumped off Dojo’s back before looking around the busy, colourful French Plaza in wonder.

 

“Paris isn’t only the capital of France, but also of Fashion” she stressed, gesturing to all the expensive, designer stores and boutiques around them “It‘s like trying to find a needle in a haystack!”

 

“We have a vague idea what it looks like” Rai shrugged, lifting the magic scroll for the others to see “And we also have Dojo‘s Wu-senses to guide us”

 

“Raimundo‘s right” Clay agreed as the shrunk Dragon climbed up onto his shoulder to get a better vantage point “Y‘all gotta remember we‘ve found Wu in tougher hiddin‘ spots before”

 

“Indeed!” Omi declared, pointing to the sky dramatically “Let us make hast at once, before the forces of Evil arrive!” he stated just as Dojo suddenly went ridged and pointed in a random direction.

 

“It‘s that way!”

 

* * *

 

 

“This sucks” Gabrielle pouted, sitting off to the side, propping her head no her fists as she watched Fleur try on the sixth dress she’d liked since entering that particular shop. That being the third store they had visited since arriving in Paris.

 

“Get over it” Jack scoffed, flipping idly through the high-end store’s catalogue “It‘s your own fault for telling your mum that you‘d base your dress on whatever Fleur chose. Now you have nothing to do while Fleur does her thing” he shrugged, glancing up at his mum and aunt Apolline fawn over the other teen’s dress choice. He had to admit it was rather nice, very earthy with the bluish-gray material and decorative flowers. Hopefully she liked it enough to actually buy it since his feet were starting to ache.

 

“I was hoping it would encourage her to choose her’s faster” Gabrielle sulked before giving the Goth a sideways glare “I just wanna get this over with so we can get Ice-cream. Speaking of which, **Why** haven’t you chosen ** _yours_** yet?”

 

“Mum insisted we go to my father‘s favourite tailors for my suit” Jack said with a roll of his eyes, obviously annoyed with his mum’s insistence at keeping to tradition “She wants me to look _‘Perfect’_ for my first date or something”

 

“It‘s my first ever date too” Gabrielle scoffed, glancing out the window at the busy Paris shopping plaza, thinking she saw something green fly near the Ifle Tower for a moment before shrugging it off as nothing “My mom‘s not making a big deal out of it”

 

“A date with Seamus Finnigan isn’t a real date, Gaby” Jack stated bluntly, nudging the blond with his shoulder.

 

“It is so!”

 

“No it's not. Come on, the guy‘s three years older than you”

 

“So what?!” Gabrielle demanded, punching the Goth in the arm “He‘s cute and he asked me out!”

 

“ _‘Cute’_?” Jack snorted in laughter, rubbing his sore bicep “Are we still talking about Finnigan? The Gryffindor? Is that really your type?”

 

“I‘m eleven” Gabrielle stated in a ’Duh’ tone of voice, giving Jack a disbelieving look “I don’t have a type yet”

 

“Exactly!” Jack grinned triumphantly “You’re still in the _‘Meh’_ stage about guys, so it can‘t be a real date and aunt Apolline knows it”

 

Gabrielle just sat there scolding her cousin for a couple moments before punching his arm again “You **_Jerk_** ”

 

“Just admit defeat already” he snorted, rubbing his arm again as he shifted away from the violent preteen “You can’t go on a real date until you’re actually attracted to someone, not just find them _‘cute’_ ”

 

“Whatever” Gabrielle grumbled, taking up her previous sulking pose.

 

“So…” Jack grinned, leaning back on his hands “What type of dress are you gonna get?” he asked only for the store to be suddenly engulfed in light before disappearing, leaving the three teens and their mothers sitting on a rock platform, surrounded by an orange void.

 

**“Gong-Yi-Tempai!”**

 

“Putain l'enfer…”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO sorry this took so long! The next chapter will be early, I promise!!!  
> My mind has been so caught up in later chapters that I had not idea what to do to lead up to it, get what I mean?  
> I kinda rushed this chapter out so the Yule Ball chapter will have to be pushed up one so it's not rushed like I'll probably do with the showdown...  
> Well I hope the fan-art made up for how long it took for me to get this chapter out! Enjoy! ;p


	23. Unexpected Spectators

 

                                                                              

 

 

“ _Putain l‘enfer…_ ” Jack swore in French as he realised what had happened. He’d experienced it plenty of times in the past to automatically know what was going on, even without having to look over at the ‘battle’ going on behind him, but he didn’t understand **_why_** he and his family had been pulled into it.

 

“Jackie, what ‘ze ‘ell is going on?!” Fleur demanded in English as she sprung to her feet, noticing how calm Jack was compared to everyone else.

 

“Xiaolin Showdown” he shrugged, following the rest of the group's example and climbed to his feet. Maybe they had been transported because he had participated in so many Showdowns before, it's not like him being taken along to watch hadn’t happened before, sometimes it just happened even if he hadn’t touched the Wu. His family probably taken to because they were all witches and since the Shen Gong Wu was technically magic maybe it automatically assumed they were all a part of the Showdown.

 

 _I really shouldn’t question the reasoning behind why an ancient magical artefact does things or if it even has conscious enough thought to make decisions…’_ he decided, turning his attention back to the four scared women.

 

“And what is a ‘Xiaolin Showdown’, young ma-” Lucy began tensely only to be interrupted by a shout from another platform not too far away.

 

“Jack Spicer!” Omi cried, looking away from the Showdown between Raimundo and Wuya as he spotted the teen’s brightly coloured hair “You have decided to join us in the hunt for Shen Gong Wu once again, yes?!”

 

“No, you little Cheese Ball!” Jack scolded, turning to face the Monks, not even bothering to glance over at the battle as an explosion went off and the sound of Wuya’s manic laughter filtered through the void “We were minding our own God-Damn business when we got pulled in!”

 

“… There‘s no way _that’s_ Jack” Kimiko muttered in disbelief as she looked at the Goth with a new appreciation, nobody changes so much in only a couple months. The strange thing was that the Japanese teen couldn’t actually tell what had changed about the boy other than that he just seemed more attractive to her.

 

“ ’Ah agree” Clay nodded speechlessly while the smallest Monk merely gave them a weird look.

 

“Of course it is Jack Spicer! He is right here!”

 

“Jackson Spicer! You tell me where we are right this second!” Lucy ordered, pinching her son’s ear while her sister gathered her own daughters closer, away from the endless abyss beyond the edges of their floating platform.

 

“Ow, ow, ow! That hurts!” Jack whined as his mum pulled his ear sharply “It’s sort of like a Wizards Duel! But for ancient Chinese magical objects! Now let go!”

 

“A Wizards Duel…” Lucy muttered in disbelief, glancing over at the teens she had met before, the ones she’d assumed were Muggles, and then at the battle that seemed to be an exploding game of hop-scotch. The two players having to jump from one floating stone to another while avoiding each other's attacks “ _This_ is what you’ve been doing for the last couple years!?”

 

“Kinda…?” Jack admitted nervously, bright red in embarrassment at being scolded by his mum in front of the Xiaolin Losers‘. At least Chase wasn’t there to witness it.

 

“Awesome!” Gabrielle exclaimed gleefully at the news while Fleur and his Aunt Apolline shared worried looks.

 

“It is not ‘awesome’! No wonder you always had cuts and bruises; this looks ridiculously dangerous!”

 

“How is it any more dangerous than Fleur being in the Triwizard Tournament?” Jack grumbled, rubbing his red-raw ear.

 

“The Tournament has a school full of trained professionals and safety measures in place! _This_ is a bunch of untrained, underage Wizards using volatile magic irresponsibly, and it **Stops Now!** ” Lucy declared, whipping out her wand and summoning the Wu to her. The golden headband streaking past a stunned Rai and Wuya before landing in her waiting palm before the Showdown landscape shattered, leaving them all standing in the middle of the large French Boutique. The same one they had all been in just not the same place.

 

“Mum…” Jack whispered in awe as he looked between her and the Wu in her hand in astonishment.

 

“ _WHAT!?_ ” Wuya screeched, pointing at the blond “That should not be possible! Rules should be in place to stop such a thing!” she demanded as Dojo popped out of Clay’s hat and began frantically through the rule book.

 

“There should be! Surely Dashi wouldn’t leave such a huge loophole!” Dojo agreed with the Heylin Witch for the first time ever before stopping on a particular page in his rule book, stunned as he read the passage aloud “ _‘No rule prohibits modifications of Shen Gong Wu, forced use of Wu, unfairly manipulation the environment, **spectator interference** or attacking another player non-competitively’_ … I suppose old Dashi never thought a spectator could get the Wu while in the middle of a showdown”

 

“NO! I won't have this!” Wuya screamed before lunging at Lucy, her sharp nails poised for attack.

 

“Mum!”

 

“Back off, Bitch!” Apolline cried out fiercely, finally getting over the shock of the recent events just in time to step in front of Lucy. Then pulling out her own wand and blasting the red-headed Witch across the thankfully empty section of the store “No one attacks _my_ little sister!”

 

Jack quickly shuffled his way around the two vicious blondes to stand between his cousins and the speechless Monks, getting as far out of the line of fire as he could “Our Mom‘s are wicked” he whispered as his mum shot a curse at the quickly rising Wuya.

 

“Yeah~…” Fleur and Gabrielle agreed breathlessly as their own mother began to rant between curses.

 

“All I wanted was a nice s‘opping trip with my girls and nephew! To find ‘zem a nice outfits for ‘ze Yule Ball! But No! We end up forcefully taken to a pocket dimension against our will just as my little girl found ‘ze **_Perfect Dress_!** ‘zen you attack my sister!? _Vous putain SALOPE_!”

 

“How are they doing that?…” Rai asked in awe as he watched the two French women send Wuya flying with curse after curse, not giving her time to do much else then climb back to her feet.

 

“Magic-” Jack stated.

 

“ ** _Duh!_** ” Gabrielle added as Apolline and Lucy finally left the other Witch collapsed in a knocked-over clothing stand, heading over to the teens while trying to calm down and fix their ruffled hair.

 

“Here” Lucy sighed, tossing the Hei Headband at the stunned form of Kimiko “Don’t let me catch you lot playing that dangerous game again, understand?”

 

“Yes, Ma‘am!”

 

“Now didn’t you have something to say to my Jackie?”

 

“Yes!” Omi quickly agreed, not wanting to annoy the unusually powerful Spicer Matron who’d thrown a Heylin Witch around like a rag doll. Not to mention he’d been bottling this apology up for months with his growing guilt “Jack Spicer!”

 

“…Yeah?”

 

“My comrades and I are truly sorry for making you downset-”

 

“Upset” Clay corrected.

 

“With hurtful words and calling of the names-”

 

“Name-calling” Rai added.

 

“During our last Showdown together! We are of the most sorry and hope you will forgive our digressions against your person, and wish for you to return to the folds of our community!”

 

“…I ain't touching that one” Kimiko stated bluntly, not fully understanding what the little yellow Monk was going on about since he’d gone into full-on rant mode in his upset and panicked state like he thought Jack was going to disappear before he could finish his apology.

 

“…Okay?” Jack agreed in confusion only for Omi to tackle his midsection in a bear-hug.

 

“Oh, thank you, Jack Spicer!”

 

“Whatever! Just get off me, Cheese Ball!” Jack scoffed, prying the small yellow preteen off his person.

 

“I hope you realise we‘ll be having a long talk” Lucy stated firmly, giving her son a seething stare.

 

“Later, Lucy” Apolline waved off her sister's sour look before gesturing to Fleur “First we must buy our Champion her dress, find one for Gabrielle and ‘zen ‘ead to ‘ze Kingsman Tailors for Jackie. Not to mention finding ‘em shoes and accessories. We‘ve wasted over ‘alf an ‘our already with ‘zis nonsense!”

 

“Alright, we better get going if we want to get everything done today” Lucy nodded in agreement.

 

“And get somet‘ing to eat too!” Gabrielle added eagerly, wanting nothing more than for the shopping trip to be over quickly. Not to mention get home so she could write to her friends and tell them what had happened.

 

“Ice-Cream!” Jack suggested with an equally eager nod.

 

“Yes!” Fleur grinned as her mother began leading her back towards the changing room that she’d left her normal clothes in, followed by the rest of the blonds “Could we please Apparite to Diagon Alley? Everyone at ‘ogwarts swears ‘zat Florean Fortes cues ‘as ‘ze best ice-cream in Europ!”

 

“We‘ll see” Lucy nodded, following after the rest of the women while Jack stayed behind, putting his hands in his pockets casually as he turned his attention to the Monks.

 

“So… How've things been?”

 

“Boring” Rai answered truthfully, his eyes flicking between the leaving group of woman and Jack; confused by how he suddenly found Spicer to be as equally attractive as the gorgeous French girls. Especially as he’d always found Jack kinda creepy-looking before, but for some reason, he found himself thinking of the Goths red eyes and white skin as exotic instead of freaky like he used to. How his instincts were to hit on the albino instead of just plain hitting him “So, Um… your Mum and Aunt… Are they witches or something, like Wuya?”

 

“Half” Jack shrugged before rubbing the back of his neck nervously, feeling uncomfortable having such a laid-back conversation with the Monks when they only usually argued or were trying to come up with a way to stop a greater Evil than him. They’d never talked about how their daily lives were or about each other's families “They‘re also half Veela, but whatever. So why have things been boring? They never were before”

 

“Because there ain't nobody ta fight when tryin’ ta collect new Wu” Clay explained, pulling his hat down nervously as normal customers began wandering into their part of the boutique and gathering around the unconscious form of Wuya curiously.

 

 _‘Yeah, you don’t always have someone to beat on you mean’_ Jack mentally scolded “Right, well I‘ll probably see ya‘ around” _‘Since the Universe seems to hate me’_ “…Bye”

 

“Goodbye, my friend!” Omi called back, waving happily while selectively not hearing Jack’s reply of ‘I’m not your friend, Twinky!’ as the Goth walked away.

 

“Hey. If Spicer‘s Mom‘s ‘half’ Witch, don’t that make him like quarter Wizard or something‘?” Clay asked as the thought suddenly occurs to him.

 

“More importantly, what the hell’s a ‘Veela’?” Kimiko added as they watched the red-haired teen head into the women’s formal wear section and out of sight.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!!!  
> I hope this chapter makes up for how late the last one was! I put a lot of effort into it, trying to make it everything you all hoped. I'm not very good at writing action so I hope it was exciting enough.  
> My fingers still ache from writing so much in such a sort amount of time and typing it up for nearly two hours, lol ;p  
> I hope you all enjoyed it and stick around for the next chapter!  
> Here's a teaser: I'm thinking of calling it 'Fancy Feet and Stalking Dragons', but I'm willing to take suggestions on the chapter title!


	24. Fancy Feet and Stalking Dragons

 

 

Christmas Day had seemed to sneak up on Jack rather quickly. After the disaster that was the shopping trip and his Mother finding out what exactly he’d been doing in his free time, Jack had been spending the last couple days leading up to the Ball studying and trying to get some of his mountain of homework done. Trying to work his way back into his Mum’s good graces again.

 

It didn’t work obviously.

 

She wasn’t about to let go of the fact that he’d spent nearly 3 years putting himself in danger constantly, but at least she was able to put it aside so she could be her normal, excitable self on his ‘Big Day’.

 

“Oh, my Baby Boy looks so grown up!” Lucy squealed, pinching the Goth’s already flustered cheeks as he entered the Living room in his new gold and black three-piece suit.

 

“You look so dapper!” she cooed, pulling a camera from her purse before taking a couple rapid shots of the teen “That Cedric boy won't be able to resist you in it!”

 

“Mum, quit it!” Jack groaned, readjusting his golden tie self-consciously for the fifth time since putting it on “We need to go; I promised the guys we‘d meet up before heading to the Ball”

 

“Aww~! Do you want to make a grand entrance at the castle for your date, Sweetie?” Lucy asked as she straightened the teen's gold-trimmed lapels. She’d wanted to do the same thing on her first date, wanting to make an awe-inspiring entrance like they do in movies. It’s too bad expectations never lived up to reality.

 

“No!” Jack scoffed; he was gay, not some teenage girl! “Cedric went back earlier today and I have to meet up with my friends to make sure Johnny doesn’t make a run for it!”

 

“Why would he run from something as fantastic as his first school dance?”

 

“He has a phobia of dancing” Jack stated bluntly.

 

“The poor boy is scared of people dancing?”

 

“No. he‘s terrified of making a fool of himself since he‘s a **_really_** bad dancer” Jack explained, heading towards the fireplace so they could Floo to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade “We found a charm that might help, but just in case we need to be there to drag him in”

 

“…If you say so, Sweetie”

 

* * *

 

Hogsmeade was a bustle of activity when the two arrived, hordes of students mingling around waiting for the school carriages to arrive and take them to the Yule Ball. Many of them have come by the Hogwarts Express or Apparition.

 

The Scottish school must have seemed pretty dead recently if so many of its students went home for the Christmas Holidays. Jack had to feel sorry for Fleur and Gabrielle since they and the other visiting schools were expected to stay there until after the Tournament.

 

After scouring mass of students wearing colourful dress robes Jack was finally able to spot his friends slightly off to the side of the gathering. It was only possible thanks to Hikaru’s unusual choice of wearing a slick white suit and blue shirt, making the Japanese teen stand-out in a sea of dark robed male students.

 

“Hikaru, Johnny, Ling!”

 

“Hey, Jack!” Ling grinned, throwing an arm over the Goth’s shoulders “Nice outfit” he stated, looking over Jack’s gold-trimmed, three-piece suit.

 

“Thanks”

 

“Are these your friends, Honey?” Lucy asked, smiling sweetly at the group of 4th years; happy to be able to meet the first friends her baby boy had been able to make. Her Jackie had always been such a shy boy and it was nice to know that coming to Hogwarts had a positive impact on him “Lucy Spicer, Jack‘s mother”

 

“Nice to meet you, Ma‘am” Johnny smiled politely, trying not to ogle the gorgeous woman as he kissed the back of her hand like how he’d been taught by his Pure-Blood parents “Jonathan Bends, at your service”

 

“Hi, Mrs. Spicer” Ling smiled, unaffected by the woman’s beauty as he greeted her “I’m Ling Zhao”

 

“Hikaru Furuya. Nice to meet ya‘”

 

“Pleasure” Lucy nodded “What polite young men you all are. I hope you've all been looking out for my little Jackie”

 

“We sure have, Ma‘am!” Ling grinned.

 

“Good” Lucy smiled in approval before whipping out her camera once again with an excited grin “Now huddle together; I want a picture of my Jackie and his little friends!”

 

Following the blond woman’s instructions, Ling quickly stepped behind the Goth before pulling his two other friends in on either side “Cheese!” he grinned, resting his head on top of Jack’s while Johnny and Hikaru also threw their arms around the group.

 

 

“Awww! It‘s perfect! This one‘s going straight in the family album!” Lucy squealed as she looked at the camera’s display screen just as the school’s self-drawn carriages pulled up into the village “Oh! Looks like your ride is here so I won't keep you!”

 

“Thanks, Mom” Jack smiled, giving her a brief hug before any of the other students noticed “I‘ll see ya‘ tomorrow, okay?”

 

“Of course, and take this. I want loads of pictures of tonight!” Lucy ordered goodnaturedly, thrusting the camera into the teen's hands before twirling him around and pushing him in the direction of the waiting carriages “Now off you go! Don’t you boys leave your dates waiting!”

 

“Bye, Mom!” Jack waved as they clambered into one of the empty carriages “I‘ll see ya‘ tomorrow!”

 

Sighing, Jack slumped into the cushioned bench as Ling shut the door and the carriage lurched into motion, joining the line as it crept up the path leading to the school.

 

“Wow, Jack…” Hikaru sniggered as he peeked out the tiny window back at the Goths mum who was still waving at their leaving ride “Your mom‘s _really_ excitable”

 

“I know” Jack groaned, blushing darkly in embarrassment at his mum’s actions “She’s always like that recently! Her coddling has gotten even worse since I got my letter!”

 

“I think it's cute” Ling cooed “She‘s obviously really proud of you and wants everyone to know”

 

“Yeah, well I wish she‘d tone it down. She‘s getting kinda over-bearing”

 

“Isn’t she always so hyper?” Johnny asked absentmindedly as he stared out the window, growing paler as he watched the castle swiftly approach.

 

“Not all the time. She was always overly-loving, but not so obvious about it before” Jack shrugged, brushing the topic aside as he noticed how the blond wasn’t really paying attention, too distracted by his increasing nervousness “So… who are you going with tonight?” he asked, wanting to take the others attention away from the window.

 

“Me!” Ling stated quickly, catching on with what Jack was doing with a grin while Johnny turned a dark red.

 

“Only as friends!”

 

“Come on, Johnny!” Ling teased, pinching the blond's cheeks “Don‘t deny our love~!”

 

“Oh, Shut it!” Johnny sulked, pushing the Chinese teen away; nearly knocking him off the bench “After spending so long looking for the dance-charm we didn’t have time to find real dates”

 

“Yeah, I was lucky no one else asked Cho out first” Hikaru nodded “I have no idea why though! I mean, she‘s gorgeous!”

 

“That‘s probably why no one asked her; her looks were too intimidating for most guys” Jack shrugged.

 

“Or they thought Potter already asked her” Ling suggested.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Come-on! Everyone knows Potter has a thing for her. Well… Everyone in Ravenclaw does anyway” he shrugged with a wave of his hand dismissively.

 

“You might want to keep an eye on him” Jack grinned teasingly “He might try to steal your date~”

 

“That dork hasn’t got a chance against ** _this_** ” Hikaru boasted, fluffing his suit collar up.

 

“You do realise he‘s the ‘Boy Who Lived’ and one of Hogwarts Champions, right?” Johnny asked.

 

“Yeah, but he‘s socially awkward, scrawny and always in some type of trouble” Hikaru stated “Girl‘s like a guy who is confident, handsome and reliable”

 

“So you have no chance”

 

“Dick!” Hikaru grinned, kicking the blonds shin as the carriage jerked to a stop in front of the castles Entrance Hall.

 

Climbing out, the group was greeted by the sound of soft jazz music and the Entrance Hall packed with students milling around, looking for their dates and waiting for the Ball to begin. It was an unusual sight for them as everyone was dressed in a rainbow of different colours and they were used to seeing everyone wearing their black school robes while at Hogwarts.

 

“Champions over here, please!” Professor McGonagall’s voice called out over the chattering crowd.

 

“Cool, we‘re right on time. Go find Cedric, Jack” Hikaru said as he and Ling both grabbed Johnny’s arms as the blond jumped in panic at the teacher's voice, preventing him from running “I gotta meet up with Cho. We‘ll meet up later, Okay?”

 

“Alright. Once everything settles down, I‘ll meet you guys near the punch-bowl!” the Goth waved back as he began weaving his way through the crowd towards where he’d heard the Professor’s voice came from.

 

“Cedric!” Jack grinned sweetly as he spotted his smartly dressed date next to the Professor wearing an ugly red tartan robe.

 

“Wow, Jack. You look… _Amazing_ ” the 17-year-old breathed out in awe, smiling slightly goofily at the Goth.

 

“Thanks. You too” Jack giggled excitedly, linking their arms as the rest of the Champions gathered around the Transfigurations Professor.

 

“Alright, I want you all to wait here for now” she ordered as the Great Hall’s large doors opened and the rest of the students began to flood in.

 

“Hi, Harry! Hi, Parvati!” the girl that was Viktor’s date greeted the two other 4th year students, smiling nervously causing Jack to do a double-take. It was Hermione Granger, the girl he’d been battling for the position as the best student in their year and one of Neville’s other friends.

 

“Wow, Granger. You look brilliant” Jack stated honestly. She looked completely different to the awkward, frizzy-haired girl that she normally was. Wearing a flattering pale pink dress, hair sleek and pulled back into an elegant knot.

 

“Um, Thank you, Spicer” she muttered in surprise as he hadn’t spoken to her before. Usually, the only forms of communication they had were smug looks and jealous glares across busy classrooms.

 

As McGonagall returned, after making sure everyone else was settled in the Hall, she organised them into a line of pairs before leading them into the Great Hall.

 

* * *

 

 

  
Chase had to admit that Hogwarts had grown rather substantially since its inception. The school had originally started as a group of small wooden structures in the Scottish Highlands, but now it was an enormous castle with impressive architecture.

 

“Ah! Mr. Young!” an elder, moustached wizard greeted the War Lord as he made his way across the exquisitely decorated feasting hall “I‘m happy you could make it. What do you think of the school so far?”

 

“Worth the trip, Mr. Crouch” Chase nodded absently to the Head of the Department of Magical Cooperation who he’d met during his visit to the Ministry of Magic and had been trying to impress him ever since, even inviting him to spectate the Triwizard Tournament just as Chase had planned.

 

“Excellent! Your ancestor knew how to invest his money wisely, didn’t he?” Bartemius asked, gesturing to the elaborate decorations.

 

“I suppose” Chase hummed, straightening the collar of his traditional Chinese shirt as he looked around the room. The walls were covered with a magical silver frost that glistened in the light from the enchanted ceiling that reflected the snowy sky outside. A winter wonderland in all respects.

 

When the large doors leading into the Hall opened, Chase turned his attention to the teenagers pouring in; scanning the horde for his Spicer. While there were many red-heads, obviously a common colour in Europe, he did not see his little albino anywhere in sight.

 

“Good Evening, Bartemius” the school's elderly Headmaster greeted kindly as they made their way to the head table “And who, may I ask, your guest is?”

 

“Evening, Albus. This is Chase Young. His family-”

 

“Ah! The Young’s! one of the original benefactors of Hogwarts” Dumbledore interrupted as he smiled at Chase, looking over his half-moon glasses at the immortal “It‘s a pleasure. My apologies, but I assumed that your family died out centuries ago”

 

“No. Merely relocated” Chase snorted “The Land of Nowhere was much more suitable”

 

“ ‘Ze Land of Nowhere?” the half-giantess asked curiously, gaining Chase’s attention “ ‘Zere surely is no such place”

 

“It‘s an unpopulated area located beyond the Valley of Somewhere, but just before the Jungle of Neither Here Nor There” Dumbledore explained much to the Dragon Lord’s surprise; not many people actually knew about Nowhere that was not a part of the Xiaolin or Heylin community “It‘s rather inhospitable, but some very interesting creatures reside there”

 

Just as Chase was about to comment all the students in the Hall erupted into applauds; the doors had opened once again and a line of four couples were making their way towards the dance floor in the middle of the room. The third couple to enter caught Chase’s attention immediately; there next to a relatively good looking teen was _**his**_ Spicer.

 

Oh, how his minion had matured in the last couple months. It wasn’t as potent as his mother, but Spicer had obviously inherited some of her alluring aura; disbanding the feeling of disgust he used to feel upon looking at the boy. Another enchantment he supposed.

 

Now he could see Spicer for what he really was; flawless white skin, bright flaming red hair that looked soft to the touch and a lean supple body that simply _**begged** _ to be shaped into something magnificent.

 

His worm even seemed less clumsy and awkward Chase noticed as the orchestra began to play and the four pairs began to waltz.

 

Chase finally turned back to Crouch as his view of Spicer was obscured by other making their way onto the dance floor, including the host school’s Headmaster “Tell me about the Champions”

 

“Oh, well Durmstrang‘s Champion is Viktor Krum, a professional Seeker for the Bulgarian Quidditch team” Crouch began, pointing at the large teen with the young girl in pink before moving on to a blond girl in a silver dress that emitted the same type of aura as Spicer “For Beauxbaton is Fleur Delacour, an indirect descendant of the prestigious Spicer Family on her mother's side”

 

“Spicer family?” Chase asked, cutting off the man before he could continue.

 

“A very influential family in Europe, Mr. Young. They are considered Pure-Blood even though they have mingled with Veela‘s in the past”

 

“If they aren’t truly Pure-Bloods why are they considered so?” Chase asked while smirking at finally having an answer to why the teen’s family all seemed to have an alluring aura. He knew from experience that Veelas were practically irresistible, but also _very_ prone to mood swings which would explain Spicer’s tantrums and constant instability as an ally. After all, Veelas were ruled by their emotions and could turn on you in a heartbeat if they felt like it, so it wasn’t a surprise that his minion had the same mindset.

 

“It‘s easier for true Pure-Bloods to accept them into their families that way. An excuse, if you will. Because who doesn’t want someone with Veela genes in their family or as their wife? They are considered the most beautiful of beings after all” Crouch explained before turning back to the original topic “Now for Hogwarts, we have Cedric Diggory and, due to some complications with the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter”

 

“Two Champions for Hogwarts? That hardly seems fair to the other schools”

 

“There wasn’t much that we could do since the Goblet consists of a binding magical contract, so he couldn’t back out once he was chosen. The other schools accepted it since Potter is only 14 and we don’t expect him to win even though he did very well during the first task”

 

“You shouldn’t underestimate him just because he‘s young” Chase stated, watching the scrawny black haired teen abandon his dance partner and quickly escape the dance floor as soon as the first dance ended “Some of the greatest warriors in history were no older than he is” he should know since he had most of them in feline forms back at his citadel.

 

“I suppose that’s true…” Crouch agreed, not that Chase paid him much mind since all of his attention was once again focused on his Spicer who was still dancing, rather closely, with the tall brunette.

 

Chase watched with a darkening scold as the little Goth laughed gleefully at something the Diggory boy said. Seeing the taller of the two begin to lean-in closer to Spicer’s face in an obvious attempt to kiss him, Chase abandoned Crouch and teleported beside the couple before slipping his arm around his albino’s waist, pulling him away from the other before their lips met, just in time.

 

“May I have this dance, Spicer?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was 8 pages worth, so I hope it tides you all over and makes up for how late it is!
> 
> Also: Shout out to DeadJane who's been helping me finish planning out this story's plot, inspiration and supporting me since the beginning!
> 
> PS: All the fanart I've done for this story can be found here :  
> http://amanda040.deviantart.com


	25. Dreams and Nightmares

 

  
Oh God, Jack was terrified. Forget Johnny’s dance anxiety, _he_ was the one who had to dance in front of hundreds of people! Yeah, the idea of all that attention sounded awesome, but not when he could mess up and make a fool out of himself and his date at any time!

 

Jack was clumsy, that was a fact he’d accepted years ago, so how could he bloody forgot that until he was standing right outside the Great Hall, seconds before he had to dance _gracefully_ in front of the entire school?!

 

“Calm down, Jack” Cedric whispered with an encouraging smile.

 

“ ‘Calm down?!’ ” Jack stressed through gritted teeth, clutching the elder teens arm tightly “I‘m gonna fall flat on my face, embarrassing you, me and the entire school!”

 

“Did you ‘fall on your face’ when your Head of House taught you the dance?”

 

“No...?”

 

“See, nothing to worry about, and if you do fall I‘ll catch you” Cedric promised, patting Jack’s clenched hands.

 

Jack wasn’t sure if he fully believed him; no one had ever caught him when he fell, they normally pushed him. The only time someone stopped him from falling was when he'd first me Chase and the Warlord had dropped him moments later. But as the Great Hall’s doors swung open with the sound of trumpets he didn’t really have much of a choice but to trust Cedric's promise.

 

 

As they walked in the Great Hall burst into applauds, surprising Jack so much that he nearly screamed and back out of the room. Thankfully Cedric gripped his hand tighter so he couldn’t flee.

 

“I can’t do this! I can‘t do this!” he whispered over and over again under his breath as they made their way onto the dance floor.

 

“Deep breaths” Cedric instructed as they turned to face each other and got into position, his right hand squeezing the Goth’s waist reassuringly “Pretend no one else can see us, Okay? It‘s just you and me”

 

Nodding quickly, Jack focused all of his genius attention on his dates face as the music picked up and Cedric began to lead him backwards in a swaying motion. Maybe he could do this. It was only this one dance he had to get right. As long as he didn’t let his eyes wander from Cedric’s and pretended that no one else was in the room, he would be _fine_.

 

As they began to dance their movements were stiff and a bit clumsy, their hands swapping positions as they moved across the floor, Jack even felt nauseous as Cedric lifted him into the air the first couple times, but after a few times repeating the same steps they started getting the hang of it. Even as the couple grew more confident no one would consider them ‘graceful’ exactly, but at least they were starting to have fun with it.

 

Just as Cedric swung him around again applauds broke out through the hall snapping Jack out of his fantasy world. Finally looking away from the elder teen, Jack glanced over his shoulder to see the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall make their way onto the dance floor, paving the way for the rest of the party-goers and obscuring them from prying eyes.

 

“Thank Merlin” Cedric sighed, his shoulders slumping in relief and the hard look of concentration slipped from his features, surprising Jack since he hadn’t realised how tense the other had been until he saw it bleed away.

 

“You were freaked out too!”

 

“Well, yeah!” he laughed as he lifted Jack again “I was terrified! I've never danced in front of anyone before either!”

 

“But you were comforting me!”

 

“All you needed was to ignore everyone, so it wasn’t like I did much. And trust me; if you‘d ran I would have been right behind you” Cedric shrugged with a snigger, relaxing more as the first dance ended.

 

“It was easy, ignoring losers has become a speciality of mine” Jack smirked as Cedric pulled him closer before they began to sway in a lazy imitation of dancing.

 

“What? Too many guys begging you to date them?” Cedric teased, bumping his forehead against the Goths.

 

“No” Jack snorted in amusement “Before my Veela genes kicked in everyone were dicks. I‘m a scrawny, albino Goth: a perfect target for losers”

 

“Losers will be losers, and that makes me a winner for dating you!” Cedric grinned as Jack laughed loudly at his cheesiness.

 

“You‘re such an idiot” Jack giggled, smacking the elder teens chest playfully “If you don’t stop you’re gonna give me diabetes, or I‘ll puke at all the sweetness”

 

“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” Cedric smiled softly as he began to lean in slowly.

 

He was going to kiss him, Jack realised. Terror shot through him, but at the same time excitement as it dawned on him that he was about to lose his first kiss. Jack quickly closed his eyes as Cedric got closer and hoped he wouldn’t mess it up.

 

Just as he felt the warm breath on his lips a strong arm looped around his waist and pulled him out of Cedric’s arms, back against a large broad chest.

 

“May I have this dance, Spicer?”

 

“Chase?!” Jack squealed in utter disbelief as he wrenched his neck around to look over his shoulder at the immortal. It was really him! What was Chase doing here?!

 

 

 

“Well, Spicer?” Chase asked, raising an eyebrow as he stared down at the albino intensely with his golden eyes.

 

“Um, yeah…” he said breathlessly, staring wide-eyed at the War Lord who smirked back. He had to be dreaming or hallucinating or something; there was no way Chase was at Hogwarts asking **_him_ ** to dance.

 

“Jack!” Cedric scolded causing the Goth to jolt in surprise, he’d completely forgotten that his boyfriend was right there for a second, the Champion was obviously annoyed that he’d been snatched right out of his hands.

 

“Huh? What? It‘s rude to say ‘no’ ” Jack shrugged.

 

“Since when do you care about being rude?” Cedric sulked, eyeing Chase suspiciously. The tall Asian man obviously knew Jack and he hated how Jack continued to stare at him in utter awe, like this guy hung the stars, and it seriously ticked him off.

 

“Just go find Kate and the guys” Jack waved him off, not taking his eyes off Chase; afraid he would disappear if he looked away “I‘ll see you after, Okay?”

 

“Whatever” Cedric grumbled, sharing a glare with the stranger before sulking off to find his friends.

 

“I see you've been busy these last few months, Spicer” Chase said as he turned Jack to face him before leading him in a simple Foxtrot.

 

“Um, yeah. It‘s been a busy couple months” Jack admitted nervously as Chase began smoothly lead him across the dance floor with long, flowing movements. The War Lord obviously had much more experience with ballroom dancing than anyone else there as his movements were confident and natural enough that even Jack’s inexperience didn’t mess them up “What are you doing here?…”

 

“I can go wherever I wish, Spicer” Chase snorted self-righteously as they spun in a graceful arch, weaving them through the awkwardly dancing students “But I was also invited as I am a ‘descendant’ of one of Hogwarts financial sponsors”

 

 _‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’_ Jack wondered sarcastically before he was suddenly dipped back.

 

 

“But I must say, you have certainly changed for the better in this time, Spicer” Chase smirked down at him in a way that if he didn’t know better, Jack would suspect of being flirtatious.

 

“Thanks?” Jack squeaked in response to the compliment, practically melting inside as he was pulled back up “L-l-like you said; it‘s been a busy couple months” he stuttered, cheeks turning beet red as he stared up at the Dragon Lord in utter admiration.

 

No matter how much he tried to separate himself from his old life, he knew he would never stop admiring everything that was Chase Young, He’d been his Idol long before he actually met him and no matter how cruel he’d been to Jack he’d never stop worshipping him. He was just too awesome and bad-ass not to love, and Jack _hated_ that about him.

 

“Indeed” Chase’s smirk darkened, stealing a glance at the disgruntled Champion waiting across the Hall for the unearthly beautiful boy in the Immortals arms. The teen had been out of his sight for only four months and he already had to re-establish his claim on his minion since there was already lowlifes loitering around him, ready to pounce.

 

“You've certainly surprised me in your competence to perform magic, Spicer”

 

“Really?!” Jack asked eagerly; overjoyed that he could do something that Chase actually deemed worthy of acknowledgement. The Immortal had always seen the Shen Gong Wu he’d give him and his tech as worthless, the pride he felt at his semi-interest was overwhelming. “I‘m getting ‘outstanding’ in nearly all of my classes and have even started designing my own spells! I’ve also been thinking of working on Curses next! I've been reading and the ones they have already are kinda pathetic, I could come up with some **_Deadlier_** ones!” he rambled, desperate to validate his powers in Chase’s eyes.

 

“Hmm, bringing some focus to this communities bastardised version of magic would be a benefit in my opinion” Chase nodded before glaring up at the enchanted ceiling “These mortals obviously have no understanding of the proper use of the mystic arts. I am pleased to see you are not following them blindly in this, Spicer”

 

‘ _He complimented me! Chase Young has complimented me while touching me!_ ’ Jack swooned at the realisation, his knees weakening at the thought, Chase’s strong hands being the only things keeping him upright as they danced. “Y-Yeah, I‘m only learning their stupid magic so I can make mine cooler! …and to keep up my grades” he boasted before confessing the last part quietly; unable to stop himself from being somewhat honest, but not wanting Chase to hear him at the same time.

 

“Fascinating” Chase lied easily, naturally tuning-out the teen’s gloating “So, Spicer, I have once again decided to take on an apprentice-”

 

“Wait a minute! Hold the phone!” Jack butted in, snapping out of his awed state before staring down the Immortal skeptically with his newly developed self-confidence “Is this another competition, like the one between me and Katnappe?” he snorted, pulling away from the surprised Warlord “If so, you should just offer Ashley the job, because I‘m out of the Shen Gong Wu game. As much as I look up and respect you, Chase, I ain't going back to that life. Especially after what happened at the last ShowDown!”

 

Chase blinked in shock as he watched his minion turn his back on him and began to walk away, trying to digest what had just happened. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go; Spicer was meant to leap at the chance to be his disciple, how _dare_ he reject his offer without even letting him finish! That Insolent Worm!

 

“Interesting…” Chase growled, an amused smirk creeping onto his chiselled face as it sunk in. Spicer had finally grown a backbone after all these years, but it was obvious from their earlier interactions that his sway over the teen had not diminished over these last four months. Both of these traits proved to him that his Spicer had become something worthy of his time and that for the first time in a century Chase would actually have to **_work_** for something he wanted.

 

“How _very_ interesting…”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, SO sorry it's so late! The last couple months have been really busy for me, my cat had to go for surgery to get her ears amputated due to cancer and I've been caring for her since, but now she's better my update-schedule will be going back to normal now.  
> I hope all the art makes up for it. ;p


	26. Karma and Caviar

 

 

“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!” Jack panicked between his gritted teeth as he walked away from the immortal, waiting to be stricken down at any moment for his outburst “I‘m dead! I‘m _so_ dead! Why did I say that!?”

  
A dream come true had suddenly turned into a living nightmare, just because he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut and temper in check! He’d be lucky to get through this night alive after that stunt! What the hell was wrong with him!?

  
**“ _Constant Vigilance!_ ”**

  
“AHH!” Jack squeaked, throwing his arms over his head while ducking away from the ‘threat’.

 

“Acceptable, I suppose” Moody grumbled as he passed the Goth, doing an extremely ungainly two-step with an unimpressed looking Professor Sinistra.

 

“Oh, it‘s you Professor” Jack muttered absently as he glanced over his shoulder to where he’d left Chase only to discover that the Immortal had gone.

 

“Who else would it be” Moody grunted rhetorically while Professor Sinistra nodded stiffly at them as they stopped ‘dancing’ and walked off, obviously thankful to get away

 

“You‘ve been doing well during my classes, Spicer”

  
“Thanks, Professor” Jack grinned proudly at the praise.

  
“I find your views on the Dark Arts… Interesting”

  
“Really? My friends think its creepy how useful I think dark magic is” Jack stated bluntly.

  
“Yes” Moody grunted before completely changing the conversation randomly that took the teen off guard “I want you to write an essay on the history of the Dark Arts and your views on the subject for me”

  
“What!? Why!? You just said I was doing well in your class!” the Goth scolded in offence, crossing his arms stubbornly. He didn’t care that he was sassing a teacher at this point since he was seemingly doubting Jack’s intelligence which was new for the teen since he was normally the one correcting them in muggle schools.

  
“You are. Calm down, lad” Mad-Eye snorted in annoyance as he glared down at the Goth “Just consider it homework for extra credit. To mark your work accurately I need to understand your mindset on the subject”

  
“Oh!… Okay” Jack shrugged, smiling awkwardly “Any part of history you want me to focus on?”

  
“The last Wizarding War” Moody smirked before pushing the clueless albino in the direction of the drinks table “Now get going, Mr. Spicer; your friend is trying to get your attention”

  
“Huh? Oh!” Jack grinned, spotting Ling waving at him across the busy room “Thanks Professor, I‘ll have that essay ready for you after the holiday” he nodded before beginning to weave his way through the crowd towards his friend.

  
“You do that, Spicer” Moody grunted before pulling out his flask and taking a deep swig.

 

* * *

 

 

“What… are you doing, Johnny?” Jack asked, wrinkling his nose in confusion as the blond ducked behind the punch bowl when a Professor walked past.

 

“Hey, Jack” Ling grinned, leaning back on the table casually “I haven’t been able to wrestle him onto the dance-floor yet and he‘s hoping none of the Professors have noticed”

  
Snorting in amusement, the Goth leaned over the table to look down at the Brit as he also grabbed a bottle of Butter Beer “What happened to the Charm you spent all month practising? You didn’t get a real date because you spent so long mastering it!” he asked as he took a sip of the sweet drink.

  
“Hay!” Ling pouted “I‘m a real date!”

  
“I‘m not risking it!” Johnny scolded, looking ready to hide under the tablecloth while ignoring Ling’s whining “I’m not like you! I don’t have an amazing partner that could make even my disaster of coordination look elegant!”

  
“ _Hay!_ Is this ‘Pick on, Ling’ day?” Ling sulked, feeling that the blond had insulted his dancing skills “But speaking of which, who _was_ that guy? Cedric looked pissed!”

  
“Um… That’s Chase. I’ve known him for a couple years” Jack shrugged nervously, glancing over his shoulder; still expecting a beating from the Warlord “He‘s here for the Tournament, I think”

  
“Look‘s like he‘s here for more than just that if you ask me” Ling grinned, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

  
“Huh?…” Jack murmured in utter confusion “Like what?”

  
“ _ **You**_ , Duh! Even I could see that, ya‘ bloody idiot…” Johnny huffed, peeking out from behind his hiding place.

  
“Chase wouldn’t come here all the way here just to offer me an Apprenticeship” Jack scoffed, finally starting to relax as he was sure if Chase was going to kill him, he would have done it by now “He‘s never given me the time of day before, except when he wanted something” Just like everyone else, he added mentally in a slightly depressed manner.

  
“Apprenticeship?…” Ling muttered in confusion only to be tackled from behind by a smirking Hikaru.

  
“Hey guys!” he greeted them, reaching around the taller teen to grab a couple drinks from the table “Having fun? I am; Cho‘s great!”

  
“Where is she?”

  
“Chatting with her mates, I came to grab us something to drink quickly. I don’t wanna leave her for too long; Potter‘s been eyeing her up all night” Hikaru shrugged, even though he didn’t trust the Gryffindor Champion he knew he had to get a drink for his date, it was his job, at least that’s what he’d learned from watching movies.

  
“Told ya‘ so” Ling smirked.

  
“He‘s no threat” Hikaru shrugged “I mean, the guy hasn’t danced with his date _once_ since the first dance! He‘s a terrible date!”

  
“At least Patil got to dance with her date once” Ling stated bluntly, giving Johnny a side-glance.

 

“Do you like your bones not broken?” Johnny scolded up at him “Yes? Then don’t complain!”

 

“At least Potter was considerate enough not get her something off the buffet table” Jack shrugged casually, wrinkling his nose as he glanced over at the buffet in disgust.

 

“Yeah, I did offer to grab her something, but we agreed that everything out looks way too posh or gross” Hikaru nodded.

  
“Hm, I had a look earlier” Ling grimaced thinking of all the weird foreign stuff out on the table, not understanding how anyone could eat it “Are you and Cho waiting for dessert too?”

  
“Hell yeah! We aren’t touching stuff like caviar! Let the adults have it, we‘ll wait for the cake and ice-cream, thanks!” Hikaru exclaimed, pretending to gag at the idea of eating fish eggs.

  
“I hope they have pudding” Jack sighed wistfully at the thought while Johnny rolled his eyes at his friend's immaturity.

  
“You three have no taste” he scolded. Being from a rich, Pure-Blood family he appreciated the gourmet cooking greatly since he grew up eating it and was usually stuck eating mediocre meals while at Hogwarts. They catered to Muggle-borns way too much in that regard if you asked him “And Wizards don’t eat **_caviar_**. That’s a Muggle delicacy. We eat Grindylow eggs”

 

“Eww!” Ling squealed dramatically.

  
“Well, I‘ve lost my appetite” Hikaru grimaced “I‘m gonna go warn Cho incase she changes her mind about sampling the buffet” he stated bluntly before abruptly turning around and headed back to his date with an uncritically blank face.

  
“I think you broke him with the very idea of eating anything to do with those tentacle demons” Jack sniggered before peering over the crowds to find Cedric. The Hufflepuff Champion looked to be in a much more better mood since he left him, he was chatting happily with his friends near one of the buffet tables.

  
“I think I‘m gonna go warn Cedric too…” Jack decided before grabbing another bottle of Butter Beer for the elder teen and began making his way through the mingling teens.

  
“You just don’t want to taste it second-hand while snogging him!” Ling called after him teasingly causing Jack’s face to burn bright red as some of the other students turned to look at him, before flipping him the bird.

  
“Dick!”

  
“Arse Hole!” Ling grinned back cheekily not noticing a scolding Professor Flitwick walking up to stand behind him, much to Jack’s sinister amusement.

  
“Language, Mr. Chao!” Flitwick chastised sharply, startling the crap out of Ling and Johnny so much that the blond actually bolted upright out of his hiding spot with a cry.

  
Smirking, Jack hurried away as he heard the Professor reprimand the two “You are shaming the Ravenclaw name with such behaviour! I expected better from you two! And don't even delude yourselves into thinking that I hadn’t noticed that neither of you have danced yet!”

  
Karma was the sweetest justice!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this isn't exactly the best chapter, but it's mainly to help me get out of the rut I'd written myself into. ;p


	27. Boxing Day

 

 

The rest of the Ball was brilliant. Jack hadn’t had so much fun before in his life! Chase seemed to of disappeared entirely after their conversation, much to Cedric’s pleasure, which allowed Jack to fully relax after realising that he wasn’t likely going to die that night and paved the way for his utter fanboying joy when _**The Weird Sisters**_ made their appearance!

  
He flipping loved The Weird Sisters. They were the only Wizarding rock band he actually liked and Dumbledore had somehow managed to get them to play at Hogwarts! His respect for the old goat definitely raised slightly after that. You couldn’t get the Goth off the dance floor while they were on stage for love nor money, his mates gave it definitely gave it a hard couple goes… Well, Cedric and Hikaru did anyway, Ling and Johnny were in the School Infirmary at the time having the Chinese teens broken right toes healed by an unimpressed Madam Pomfrey.

  
Professor Flitwick definitely learnt his lesson not to mess with Natural Disasters in the future… hopefully.

  
But other than that everyone seemed to have a great time, except for Granger and Weasley’s blow-out near the end of the night, but _everyone else_ seemed happy at least! Hell, Neville was still dancing when the rest of them headed to bed!

  
Groaning tiredly, Jack rolled out of his bed the next day with sore and aching muscles. It could barely be considered morning when everyone woke up on Boxing Day.

  
“Breakfast?” Hikaru muttered groggily into his pillow as Jack shook his shoulder, his short spiked hair messier than usual due to the left in gel from the night before having been half flattened against his pillow.

  
“More like lunch” Jack grunted, rubbing his makeup smudged eyes before grabbing his toiletries and heading to the bathroom.

  
“I‘m not going” Johnny’s muffled voice called out from beneath his blue duvet.

  
“You can go to the kitchen if you’re that embarrassed” Ling scolded playfully, his sore foot propped up on an extra cushion, “Madam Pomfrey said not to use my foot for a couple days to let the bones set, so you can go get me something to eat”

  
“She said not to _strain_ it! Not that you couldn’t walk!” Johnny squeaked, throwing his duvet off to glare over at the taller teen.

  
“Same thing” Ling grinned cheekily, clicking his fingers at the blond as he sunk deeper into his mattress “Bring me breakfast, Slave”

  
“What!?” Johnny squeaked “That wasn’t my fault! _You_ asked _me_ out!” he sulked, pointing over at the Chinese teen's injured foot.

  
“Stop bickering like an old married couple” Hikaru yawned, crawling from his own bed slowly “You’re both idiots. Neither of you thought to use the _**Verusa Sua**_ charm you spent weeks practising instead of getting real dates” he stated in a ‘duh’ tone as he headed to join Jack in the adjoined communal bathroom just as the Goth stepped out.

  
“Jackie~! Hikaru‘s picking on me!” Ling whined playfully causing the Goth to roll his eyes at him as Johnny climbed from his bed and stretched.

  
“Hikaru‘s right; you both deserve what happened” he stated bluntly, ruffling his freshly washed hair with a towel “Now hurry up and get dressed, I wanna get some real food after only eating cakes for dinner last night”

  
“At least you got to eat” Johnny grumbled, changing into a pair of jeans and a button-up shirt “By the time we got back from the Infirmary everything was gone”

  
“I‘m **_sure_** no one ate all the Grindylow eggs” Hikaru called from the bathroom, toothbrush hanging from his foam-filled mouth as he peeked out around the door separating the two rooms.

  
“Just because I eat them doesn’t mean I _like_ them…” the blond sulked as he tried to drag Ling out of his bed while the Chinese teen played dead, not wanting to get up “You‘re so fat, Ling!” he whined as the others dead weight caused him to drop him onto the floor.

  
“Umph!” Ling grunted as he slipped from his mattress onto the cold stone “Hey! I‘m not fat! You‘re just a weakling!”

  
“You‘re both lard-asses, now let's go! I‘m hungry!”

 

* * *

 

  
The rest of the ‘morning’ went pretty quietly till Jack left for Hogsmeade to Floo home from the Three Broomsticks, probably because everyone was still exhausted from the night before and didn’t really have the energy to do anything more challenging the lifting their lunch to their mouths or breathing.

  
After he got home Jack headed back to bed till Dinner time while his Mother went out to get the pictures from the Yule Ball developed so she could gush over them and put them in the Family Album.

  
“Oh wait until your Father see‘s these!” Lucy squealed as she flicked through the photographs gleefully while one of the maids began serving them their dinner “He‘s going to be so proud!”

  
“Hmm…” Jack nodded absently, uninterested and unbelieving. He hadn’t seen his Father in nearly a year; he doubted he know or cared about what Jack was doing as long as he didn’t do anything to shame the Spicer name. the last gift he got from the man was the damned puzzle box that got him into the whole Xiaolin mess to begin with, sure he got birthday presents with his name on the card but Jack knew they really came from his Mum. Hell, the Goth would be surprised if the man knew when his birthday was!

  
“Oh my~! And who might this be?” Lucy purred seductively as she stared intensely at one of the photos before flipping it for the teen to see.

  
_‘Damn you, Ling!’_ Jack mentally cursed while his face flustered darkly as his Mother showed him a moving picture of him and Chase dancing. He knew the other teen was the one to take the photo since he was the one Jack had given the camera to for safe keeping while he did the Champions dance at the beginning of the night. “No one!”

  
“Honey~”

  
“He‘s just some guy!” Jack deflected, throwing his hands up dramatically “I know him from Showdowns, okay? Drop it, alright?” he pouted, stuffing a fork full of Bouillabaisse into his mouth before scolding at his down at his Wizarding History book he’d propped up in front of his plate.

  
“Oh, alright” Lucy sighed, bringing the photo closer to her to get a better look at the man her baby was dancing within it “…For now”

  
“Whatever” Jack grunted, flipping a couple pages in his book as he scolded at it in annoyance.

  
“What are you looking for, Sweety?”

  
“I have to write an essay on the last war for DADA, but I can't work out _what_ You-Know-Who‘s actual end-goal was” he muttered, scrunching his nose in irritation as he couldn’t find the information he needed.

 

"What do you mean, Honey? Nearly _every_ book about the war states his goal” Lucy smiled sweetly, shaking her head at his silliness.

  
“So you‘re telling me his plan really was to kill all Muggles and Muggle-borns? I just assumed that was propaganda!” Jack barked in disbelief, gesturing to his book “No wonder he lost! You turn against the _minority_ when waging war, not the majority!”

  
“What are you talking about, Jack?…” Lucy asked, her brow scrunching up in confusion and concern.

  
“I get the Muggle thing, but to target Muggle-Born's is just stupid. They‘re still Wizards after all, he could have rallied them to join him against the Muggles! I mean, Grindelwald‘s plan was better and he had a larger following then the Dark Lord because he _united_ the Wizarding Community against a common ‘enemy’!”

  
“The Dark Lord saw Muggle-Born’s as polluting the Wizarding World” Lucy suggested weakly, unable to come up with a better argument.

  
“Really… Oh, come on! Wizards originated from Muggles and magic is an evolutionary mutation _or_ all Muggles are actually Squibs and them not having magic is the mutation! The first Wizards didn’t spring from the Earth! We either came from Muggles or Muggles came from us! **_Every_** Wizard is either Purebloods or Mudbloods, take your pick!” Jack panted as he finally ended his passionate rant, pulling his hair in frustration. He was sick and tired of people thinking blood-status was important! They could hate Muggles for all he cared, but why fight among themselves!?

  
“…It‘s just a way of enforcing the Wizarding Worlds Social Hierarchy, Jack” Lucy stated bluntly, turning back to her own dinner as she dismissed his view on the subject, he just hadn’t been a part of their world long enough to understand how things were yet “Try not to think too deeply about it”

  
“But it‘s such a major flaw!” Jack whined, hating how the Dark Lord had messed-up such a beautifully evil plot. If only he’d tried rallying Wizards against the Muggles and not each other, he may have actually had a chance of winning!

  
Such a shame…

  
“Maybe you should finish your studying before passing judgment, Honey” Lucy suggested firmly “He **_was_** considered the greatest Dark Wizard of our age for a reason after all”

  
“I still think that title belongs to Gellert Grindelwald if you ask me” Jack grumbled into his meal in a pouting manner while Lucy chose to ignore his sulking and looked out the window in deep thought.

  
Maybe she should introduce him to more of his father's family friends since obviously only being friends with young Draco wasn’t being a good-enough influence on him, he needed to understand that some prejudices were just the way things needed to be.

  
Their Social Hierarchy was the only thing keeping the Wizarding world from collapsing after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally decided that the only way to get out of the corner I'd written myself into was to ignore the corner! As I do with all my problems in life.  
> I know there was loads more I could of done with the Yule Ball, but I think spending three chapters on it was enough :P


	28. First Impressions and GTA

 

 

Jack was seriously starting to hate social events, all he wanted to do was have some alone-time, to work on some of his projects in his Lab for a couple days like he used to instead of having to take part in one of his mother's extravagant parties. It had only been a couple of days since he attended the Yule Ball and he was due back a Hogwarts on the 3rd, by then he wouldn’t have got the chance to get any work done.

 

“What are you doing?!” Lucy scolded, storming past Jack, who’d been wondering the mansion’s ballroom idly, towards one of the young maids who looked terrified “The colour-scheme is Silver and Green! Why are you hanging the **_Red_** drapes?!”

 

“B-because you wanted it festive, Madam” Joyce squeaked nervously as Jack watched one of the senior maids ‘ _tsk_ ’ at her from across the ballroom while handing a pair of vibrant green drapes. Dora had been with the Spicer family since before Jack could remember and have always known what his mum wanted, even with how vague her requests were.

 

“This party is being attended by the world's most respectable and renowned people! I wanted ‘ _festive_ ’ not **_Tacky_**! Do you want them to think the Spicer‘s are tacky?!” Lucy stressed, smacking the ‘tacky’ red cloth from the new maid's hands causing them to fall to the floor in a crumpled mess “ _Green_ is the traditional festive colour! Red is a horrendous Muggle tradition derived from a _COKE_ commercial that has bastardised the Holiday!”

 

“Y-yes, Madame! I-I‘m so s-sorry!” Joyce apologised tearfully as Dora came over, ready to lead the inexperienced maid away before she caused even more of a scene with her crying. Jack knew the elderly maid never liked the new girl and would be happy for her to get fired any other time, but with such a big event that night she needed everyone with all hands on deck. Jack bet Dora’s dislike for the girl was because she was usually so up herself, constantly complaining about the work she was given and bragging about how she could be working in her Uncles five-star French restaurant instead of scrubbing floors. Jack highly doubted that since she would be there if she could and he bet she was doing menial labour here instead because her parents had cut-off her trust-fund for being such a brat.

 

It wouldn’t surprise him since he’d seen the way she’d looked at him when she’d had to serve him or clean-up after him, like how she thought _he_ should be serving _her_.

 

“Worry not, Mistress” Dora assured his mum calmly “I will get this all sorted out and have everything perfect before your guests arrive” she stated sternly, barely looking at the weeping teen before ushering her away.

 

“Thank you, Dora” Lucy sighed “You’re a lifesaver”

 

“Of course, Mistress” Dora nodded blankly, scooping up the offensive red fabric before curtseying and following the fleeing Joyce out of the ballroom just as Walter appeared next to the blond with a martini at the ready. Jack often wondered how the elder members of their staff always knew exactly what to say or do to placate his mother’s temper, maybe it was another type of magic he hadn’t heard of that was only passed down between servants?

 

“Oh, Sweety! There you are, shouldn’t you be getting ready?” Lucy smiled, finally noticing the Goth standing behind her, sipping her drink as she made her way over to him and scolding at his ratty shirt and black jeans.

 

“I will… _eventually_ ” Jack sulked with a shrug, not really wanting to put on another stuffy suit so soon after wearing the last one “What about you? Aren’t you gonna change?”

 

“But I am ready” Lucy stated in confusion “Don’t you like it, Honey?” she asked, gesturing to the incredibly revealing green dress with a neckline that was so low that it went all the way past her chest and down to her stomach.

 

“… It's a bit much?”

 

“Don‘t be silly, Jackie” Lucy scoffed good-naturedly, waving off his concerns “I‘ll have a shawl during the evening, that way I can show as much skin as I please and still be considered respectable. Don’t they teach you anything at Hogwarts?”

 

“I don’t think proper dress etiquette is a part of a Magic-School‘s curriculum…”

 

“Hmm” Lucy pouted as she re-adjusted her dresses hem “Well I thought your professors would go over it with the Yule Ball happening. To think they let a bunch of Mudbloods attend without instructing them on proper attire”

 

“It was _fine_ , Mom” Jack sighed dramatically, crossing his arms, “None of the Professors said anything so I‘m pretty sure no one wore anything _‘inappropriate’_ ”

 

“Oh yes, because they know what is appropriate” Lucy scoffed “I saw the picture you took of one of your Professor‘s wearing a hideous **_tartan_** robe. I‘m not surprised they couldn’t teach you the correct dress-etiquette since they obviously didn’t know it themselves! Thank Merlin, Madam Maxime was there for the Beauxbaton girls! That woman has a wonderful taste in fashion, even for a half-breed”

 

“She wears too much fur if you ask me” Jack muttered with an eye roll as his mum began shooing him from the room quickly.

 

“As nice as it is to see you taking an interest in fashion, you need to go get ready. Dora should have set out your outfit for you” Lucy smile before pushing him in the direction of the grand staircase.

 

* * *

 

“Come here, Cedric” Patty Diggory instructed her son, approaching him with a comb she’d pulled from her purse “I know we should of Apparited. The Port Key messed up his hair!”

 

“Stop bothering the lad, Pat” Amos laughed as his wife practically pounced at their son, comb at the ready “He‘s already nervous enough as it is. Don’t make him self-conscious as well”

 

“I want to make a good impression” Patty scolded as she finished brushing the blushing teen's hair before taking her husband's arm and let him lead her up the long pathway towards the massive Chinese-style mansion “The Spicer‘s are a very influential family and I want to give a good first impression. Cedric might marry into their family one day, we have to make sure they like him!”

 

“We‘re just _dating_ , Mom!” Cedric cried out, scandalised “Jack‘s only 14 and we've barely been going out for a couple months! Marriage isn’t on the table and it won't be for a long time! If ever!”

 

“None-sense, Cedric!” his mother scoffed as the doorman allowed them into the building “The Spicer‘s are an ancient Pureblood family! Pureblood‘s of their calibre don’t _‘date’_ lightly, if at all! They normally arrange marriages for their children, so the fact that you‘re courting this boy put‘s you ahead of anyone else his parents are looking at!”

 

Cedric mentally grimaced at his Mothers zealous for him to marry into a good Pureblood family, since her great Grandfather was a Squib she was legally considered a Halfblood, much to her displeasure. He sometimes wonders if that was why she married his dad since he was Pureblood and could give her Pureblood children.

 

 Patty Diggory nee’ Fawley was born to a Slytherin orientated Pureblood family, but because she was within three generations of a Squib descendant that made her a Halfblood and an outcast within her family and school House, resulting in her almost obsession with her being seen as ‘respectable’ in the High Society of the Wizarding world. At first she’d tried marrying into an influential Pureblood family herself, but after being rejected due to her ‘polluted’ blood she’d settled on a lower class Pureblood, Amos Diggory, and set her sights on using her pure children as a way of affiliating with a High-Standing blood-line.

 

Not that Cedric didn’t think his Mum loved his Dad. Maybe not at first, but he was sure she loved him now, that his cheerful and positive nature had warmed her heart. At least he hoped so…

 

 “Wow…” Cedric muttered as they stepped into the bustling ballroom, it was such a stark contrast to the atmosphere at the Yule Ball that he couldn’t understand how they both could be considered the same thing. While the Yule Ball had been bright, colourful and filled with an awkward atmosphere due to all the nervous and inexperienced teenagers, Mrs. Spicer’s New Year party was bright in a totally different way. Instead of cool, pure whites of ice or the moonlight, it was warm and smoky like the light of a candle or the sun. Light cream walls and pillars decorated with deep green and glossy silver trappings surrounded a relaxed crowd of socialising adults dressed in classy muted colours and filled with the echoing sound of soothing classical jazz music.

 

In comparison to the Yule Ball, it was like the feeling you get when you’re allowed to sit at the adult table instead of the children’s table for the first time. Stepping into that ballroom made Cedric feel so out of his depths for the first time, but also like he’d finally become an adult.

 

“Now **_this_** is a New Year party” Patty purred as she watched the young waiters stroll past with trays full of champagne and expensive appetisers, offering them politely to the rich and influential guests “Especially compared to the ones your Aunt hosts, Amos”

 

“Aunt Julietta‘s parties are intimate family events, Dear” Amos smiled, unaffected by his wife’s attitude “You can‘t exactly compare them to an event such as this”

 

“Exactly, she would never be able to have such important guests like the Nott‘s, Yaxley‘s and the Malfoy‘s attend one of her drab parties. Look, Amos! Even the _Minister_ is here!” Patty gushed, pulling on her husband's arm excitedly as she spotted Cornelius Fudge and his wife chatting with the Malfoy’s across the hall. This is exactly the life she’s always dreamed of having ever since she was a little girl and her 3rd cousin, twice removed, had started bragging about the life she lived as the Pureblood Fawley heir led. Patty had always been jealous of her cousin‘s life, of the people she met, the grand parties she attended and the marriage proposals she’s always received… The last Patty heard of her she’d become Mrs. Goyle and had bore Mr. Goyle a healthy son who she believed already attended Hogwarts.

 

 _This_ was what she'd been missing all these years.

 

 “Welcome!” a ringing voice called out over the music causing a hush over the gathering as everyone turned their attention to the grand staircase that leads into the ballroom. At the top stood their gracious hostess dressed in a very expensive looking and revealing gown, along with her son standing beside her “Thank you all so much for joining us tonight to celebrate the end of a wonderful year and the beginning of a new one!” she paused, smiling as the guests gave a polite, but honest applause “Now, I know you all are eager to get back to the festivities, so I won't keep you with long-winded speeches. Just help yourselves to food and drink, have fun and a happy new year!”

 

As her speech gain a few chuckles and enthusiastic applause, Lucy and Jack descended the stairs to join the party. Spotting Cedric, Jack grinned and began weaving his way through the crowd towards the other teen, barely giving the other party-goers a second look as they tried to greet him.

 

“You sure know how to make an entrance” Cedric grinned as he gestured to the staircase.

 

“I‘m a Spicer” Jack shrugged casually with a smirk “It‘s one of the first things we‘re taught as soon as we‘re able to walk. My Grandma gave me my Heli-Pack for that exact reason”

 

“Whatever, Jack” Cedric snorted in amusement, not really understanding what a ‘Heli-Pack’ was, but still entertained by his boyfriend's cocky attitude “Let‘s go get a drink, Okay?"

 

“Alright” Jack smiled, taking the elder teens arm in a manner much like the one the Champions parents did earlier.

 

“Cedric where are your manners?” Patty scolded the teen lightly, stopping him from wondering off, before stepping forwards and holding out her hand in greeting to the Goth “Patricia Diggory”

 

“Oh, Jack Spicer. Nice to meet you, ma‘am” Jack introduced himself to her easily, kissing the back of the out-stretched hand “Evening, Mr. Diggory”

 

“Good evening to you too, Lad” Amos greeted the albino happily, having come to terms with the young boy dating his son since he first met him and his mother at the station “Have you been having a good holiday?”

 

“I guess so. I‘ve been busy, but they do say that there‘s ‘no rest for the _wicked_ ’ ”

 

“I see…” Amos stated, a little confused why the boy emphasised the ‘wicked’ part, but just shrugged it off as him being an eccentric boy.

 

“So can we go get drinks now?” Cedric asked impatiently.

 

“Of cause, Dear” Patty nodded, turning her sights on the Minister’s group “Your father and I will be mingling if you need us. You go have fun”

 

* * *

 

 

“So what do you normally do at these parties?” Cedric asked as he and Jack sat against the wall on the edge of the room, drinking their punch in an uncomfortable manner. Not feeling confident enough to ask the Goth to dance since all of the adults on the dance floor seemed to know what they were doing and the only real dance he knew was the one he’d learnt for the Yule Ball.

 

“I don‘t normally attend” Jack shrugged, leaning against the other teen, pressing his side flush against Cedric’s “I was actually banned for a couple of years when I was young. I caused an explosion”

 

“An explosion?!”

 

“It was only a small one!” Jack defended himself “After that I used to spend the time in my Lair or in my room watching TV”

 

“What‘s ‘teevee’?” Cedric asked cluelessly.

 

“A Muggle-type of entertainment” Jack sighed “I‘ll explain later”

 

“So what do you want to do then?” Cedric asked instead, not really interested in whatever a 'teevee' was “What is there to do?”

 

“Not much for teenagers, unfortunately. That’s why I used to bring small inventions with me to work on during the parties, which explains the explosion by the way” he added, dropping his head to rest on the taller teens shoulder as he watched the adults dance “I would suggest dancing, but maybe later once everyone else is drunk. Our terrible dancing won't stand out by then” Jack grinned as he imagined those graceful dancers stumbling around like a newborn deer.

 

“Hay, Spicer” a new voice suddenly greeted him causing the couple to turn to look at the form of a sulking Draco Malfoy, who leant moodily against the wall beside them.

 

“Sup‘, Drake?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“How are you, Draco?” Jack repeated himself automatically, having spent enough time around Omi to know when someone doesn’t understand slang.

 

“Oh… Bored” the Slytherin groaned honestly before nodding to Cedric in acknowledgement “Diggory”

 

“Hi, Malfoy” Cedric smiled back politely, having no grudge against the younger teen or any Slytherin in general since even the Snakes in his own year tended to focus their bullying on the Gryffindor’s.

 

“Did your Mum send you over here?” Jack asked bluntly, peering through the crowd to where his own Mum was talking to the Malfoy couple.

 

“Maybe…”

 

“Chill. My Mom gave me the same third degree about having not spent any time with you too” Jack stated blunted before peering around to make sure no-one was watching them and grinning up at the two “Wanna go play some GTA?”

 

“What‘s ‘GTA’?” Draco asked in utter bafflement along with Cedric, which Jack merely responded with a wicked smirk.

 


	29. Back to Hogwarts!

 

  
“Is this really what the Muggle world is like?!” Draco cried out in horror as he watched his character get repeatedly shot by police.

  
** ‘WASTED’ **

 

“Hahahaha! Noob!” Jack cackled at the blonds expense while he controlled his own GTA avatar to break-in to the Military base by using the side of a mountain as a ramp for his car.

 

“I hope not” Cedric answered the Slytherin, not taking his eyes off his own screen as he to carefully guide his character across a motorway only for it to be immediately run down “Bloody Hell!”

 

“If it is, it totally justifies my hatred of th- _Fuck!_ ” Draco cursed before elbowing Jack roughly “Stop blowing me up!”

 

“I‘m in a _TANK_ , bitches! I don’t have to do anything I don’t wanna!”

 

“It kind of makes me feel sorrier for them than anything” Cedric grimaced as he narrowly avoided getting blown-up by Jack before scolding at the Goth “Why do _I_ get stars when _you_ try to kill **_me_**?!”

 

“Because I‘m a Pro and you’re a Noob!” Jack grinned sweetly up at the Hufflepuff before turning back to his screen “But no. This isn’t accurate to Muggle life… well, not completely. For ‘normal’ people it‘s not normally this dangerous”

 

“Just to be safe I‘m **_never_** leaving the Wizarding world” Draco declared before dropping his confusing controller onto the coffee table, officially giving up on the terrifying Muggle game. At least now Spicer wouldn’t whine at him for not trying it, and not to mention he’d learned something playing it; while Muggles’ may not be as helpless as he’d previously assumed, they were definitely more savage. Utter barbarians.

 

“Damn it, Jack!” Cedric yelled before dropping his own controller and pushing his boyfriend off the couch.

 

“Hay!” Jack pouted from the floor as the distraction had given the games A.I. a chance to blow his Tank up by air-strike.

 

“There you boys are!” a stern voice suddenly interrupted them, startling all three of them. Looking over the back of the couch they spotted a very annoyed looking head maid standing by the door, glaring at them.

 

“Hey, Dora” Jack waved at the elderly maid nervously.

 

“Master Spicer” Dora nodded at the Goth with a harsh stare “I should have known you would sneak off to the entertainment room, but I didn’t expect you to corrupt these two fine Pure-Bloods with your Muggle nonsense.”

 

“It‘s not nonsense! It‘s wanton destruction!”

 

“Your Mothers are looking for you three” Dora interrupted him before he could launch into one of his ‘evil’ rants.

 

“Oh…” he muttered, his face draining of any colouring in realisation along with the other two teens. They’d completely forgotten about the party “What time is it…?”

 

“Nearly midnight, Master Spicer”

 

“Crap!” they swore, leaping into action collecting their shoes, jackets, and ties that they had discarded while playing.

 

“Exactly” Dora snorted before leaving to let her Mistress know that she’d found her son. She wouldn’t be blamed if they didn’t make it back to the Ballroom in time for the midnight firework show.

 

* * *

 

  
Chase Young was not impressed. He’d spent months tracking down his Spicer and even infiltrated the ridiculous mortal school just to claim the Goth, and after all of that what did the worm do? He ran off the very next day!

 

Don’t get him wrong. He knew it was only for the rest of the Winter Holiday, but it still frustrated the War Lord.

 

“Ah, Mr. Young!” Dumbledore greeted the immortal cheerfully as he entered the Great Hall just in time for breakfast. Chase had to reluctantly admit that he’d been impressed with how quickly the mortals had been able to revert the Hall back to what he assumed was its normal state after the Ball. It had barely taken them a single day to rid it of all the garish decorations “I hope your accommodations are agreeable”

 

“They are satisfactory” Chase admitted as he sat next to the Headmaster. He only wished that his rooms had been ready for the night of the Yule Ball so he wouldn’t have missed Spicer leaving the next morning and had time to think of a contingency plan. Normally he would have just followed the teen, but since he’d decided to court Spicer it hadn’t seemed like the best course of action. Spicer had always been rather paranoid and if he’d shown up at the boys Manor the Goth would surely assume Chase was stalking him, and probably not even in the creepy way, but the Prey/Predator type way.

 

Which wasn’t completely inaccurate since Spicer _could_ be considered his prey in some sense. But he couldn’t pounce until he rid the field of all the _other_ predators circling the worm. The Goth was **_his_** to capture, no one else’s.

 

“How are you finding your stay so far?”

 

“Rather peaceful to be honest” Chase stated, glancing around the sparsely inhabited tables “The scenery is tranquil and I do enjoy meditating by your lake”

 

“I would enjoy the tranquillity while it lasts Mr. Young” one of the Professors sitting on the opposite side of the Headmaster stated sagely, her name was ‘McGonagall’ if he remembered correctly “Once the rest of the students return tonight peace and quiet will be hard to find. Trust me”

 

“I‘m looking forward to it actually. I came to watch the Tournament after all and it can't continue without them”

 

“The second task isn’t until the end of February…” McGonagall said, giving the immortal a confused look. She’d assumed he’d known that.

 

“Yes, but I plan to spend the time between tasks observing the students” Chase lied easily to cover for why he would be spending so much time around Spicer “I‘m curious about what they are being taught here and if I find someone with potential I may even offer them an Apprenticeship”

 

“Apprenticeship?” Albus asked in surprise; he’d never heard of the Young’s ever sharing their teachings with someone outside of their clan before.

 

“Let's just say I‘m continuing a family tradition” Chase shrugged smoothly “Finding someone worthy of learning Chi-magic takes centuries”

 

“And you think you‘ll find one here?” McGonagall asked doubtfully. Not that she doubted her students' abilities, but living up to centuries worth of expectations wasn’t likely.

 

Dumbledore, however, smiled excitedly at the idea “Do you have anyone in mind?”

 

“I have my eye on a few candidates” Chase waved off his question casually, watching the Headmaster carefully from the corner of his eye; not particularly pleased with the look on the elderly Wizards face.

 

“Well, the Triwizard Tournament _is_ the best place to scope for young talent” Albus stated carefully with a charming smile “Mr. Potter for example…”

 

Scolding, Chase suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at the Headmaster. It was pathetically obvious what his intentions were. Yes, Chase knew who the boy was thanks to his foresight to research recent wizarding history, but he really didn’t want to waste time with the ‘Chosen One’ just to make his cover-story more believable. He just didn’t find the boy interesting enough. “I honestly prefer Miss. Delacour or Mr. Diggory” _They_ were the two most likely to be around his Spicer after all “They may not be the best, but they certainly have plenty of spirit”

 

Smirking at the Headmasters barely hidden look of disappointment and annoyance, Chase simply finished his meal before standing gracefully and exiting the Great Hall. He couldn’t waste any more time with idle chitchat since Spicer was due to return later that day and he had much planning to do before then.

 

* * *

  
Coming back to Hogwarts at the end of the holidays was a massive relief for Jack. Yes, he loved his Mother, but she was better taken in small doses. _Especially_ after what happened during the New Year party…

 

He could only hope she eventually got over her glee about him attending Hogwarts at last and go back to normal. Well… as ‘normal’ as she had ever been.

 

“Hey, Jack!” Ling cried as he practically tackled the Goth from behind.

 

“Watch it, Ling!” Jack squeaked as he stumbled forwards dangerously under the added weight “Quit it!”

 

“Aww! Didn’t you miss me?!”

 

“It‘s been two weeks” Jack stated bluntly before elbowing the Chinese teen in the stomach to get him off his back.

 

Ling clutched at his chest and looked over at their two other Friends with a fake kicked-puppy face “Hikaru, Jack doesn’t love me anymore!”

 

Hikaru gasped mockingly, putting a hand over his mouth with just as much drama “Oh no! I bet it‘s that Diggory-boy! I knew he would be a bad influence on our sweet little Jackie!”

 

“This always happens when they‘re left unsupervised for too long…” Johnny explained with a tired sigh at his two hyperactive friends behaviour, rubbing the bridge of his freckled nose before grabbing Jack’s robe and began dragging him away from them. Weaving his way through the crowds of returning students in the entrance courtyard and towards the Great Hall, leaving behind the still giggling idiots. “This is why I don’t like leaving them here alone during holidays” he explained.

 

“I thought they went home after the Ball?”

 

“Nah, their parents decided there was no point bringing them home for the rest of the holiday” Johnny shrugged as they entered the Great Hall and headed towards the Ravenclaw table “I wish they had gone home; without any level-headed force around they become **idiots**!”

 

“And you have to deal with this every year?” Jack grimaced sympathetically as he glanced back the way they came, expecting to see Ling and Hikaru trailing in behind, ready to grab him again at any moment.

 

“They‘ll snap out of it tomorrow when the new term starts” Johnny shrugged casually, obviously used to the strange situation “Nothing sobers them up faster than History of Magic”

 

“Ugh! I forgot we had that first thing tomorrow! If I have to listen to one more lesson about the Goblin Wars I‘m gonna snap and trap Professor Binns in a puzzle box for a couple hundred years!” Jack groaned dramatically, banging his head on the table to enthicize his point.

 

“…Do I even want to know?” the blond asked, utterly confused about why the Goth thought he could trap a Ghost in a puzzle box.

 

“Probably not” Jack sighed honestly with a shrug before looking up to see the rest of the students had finally started to file in for the return feast.

 

“So how was your New Years?” Johnny asked stiffly, hoping to change the subject.

 

“…It was alright” Jack muttered while his white cheeks quickly turned red as he looked away.

 

“Oooooh! What happened?” Ling demanded, practically bouncing into the empty seat beside the Goth, leaning in close to hear the obviously juicy gossip.

 

“Nothing!”

 

“Hey, didn’t you tell us you‘d invited Cedric to your New Year party?” Hikaru asked loudly with a smirk as he sat across from the others, thankfully the rest of the Ravenclaws were used to they groups antics and ignored them.

 

“Yeah~ He did, didn’t he?!” Ling grinned teasingly, leaning closer than before to the embarrassed Goth “What happened? Do you need a Morning-after potion from Madam Pomfrey?”

 

“ **NO!** You idiot! That’s not even _possible_!”

 

“Come on, Jack~. You can tell us” Johnny joined in, smiling innocently as he was sent a murderous glare from the Goth “Do we need to defend your honour?”

 

“Not you too, John!” Jack groaned in betrayal before dropping his head into his hands tiredly “We just kissed, Okay!? And NO, it didn’t involve tongues!”

 

“Ohhh~! Do tell!” Hikaru grinned evilly, leaning over the table to try and keep their conversation private.

 

“It was a stroke of midnight situation, alright!? It‘s not like it was anything _magical_ or anything” Jack pouted. Yeah, Cedric was great and everything, but the chaste kiss wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined his first kiss being like. There had been no figurative ‘fireworks’ or anything, just lips touching and in full view of their parent too!

 

“…So no sparks?” Ling asked slowly, his grin slipping slightly at the discovery.

 

“Not on my end anyway” Jack shrugged with a shack of his head “Ced‘ seemed pretty happy and I didn’t have the heart to say anything”

 

“Well, that sucks…” Hikaru stated bluntly “At least he‘s hot, right? And he can work on his kissing skills later!”

 

“Yeah! It‘s just something he needs to work on!” Jack decided optimistically before looking over at the Hufflepuff table to give his boyfriend a smile, something he’d been avoiding doing since arriving, only to pale drastically as he spotted the new addition to the Head-Table smirking down at him “Fuck…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I once again wrote myself into a corner and had to find my way out again. It worked the first time I did it, so I just ignored the corner :P  
> I watched hours of Markiplier playing GTA to write the first scene since I've only played GTA once and that was when I was a kid! LOL  
> I hope you all liked it! I've been studying flirting and relationships to start working on the upcoming CHACK part of the story since I'm asexual/aromantic and have no real idea how all that stuff works. I hope it will pay off! ;p


	30. Terrible Plans

 

  
Jack could feel a cold sweat overtake him as he stared up at the Head Table in dread. Why was he still here? Why was he sitting with the Professors?! Had he really infiltrated _that_ deep into the Wizarding World? How’d he managed that!?

 

Jack let a pathetic whimper escape his throat as a realization occurred to him: he was so dead!

 

“What‘s wrong Jack?” Ling asked, slightly concerned at the Goths sudden mood change and the sound of terror he’d aloud escaped. Following the pale teen’s line of sight, the Goths three friends spotted the War Lord before turning back to Jack in question “Hay! Isn’t that the fit bloke you danced with at the Ball?” Ling grinned cheekily.

 

“Really?! How‘d I miss that?!” Hikaru asked in surprise, looking between the intimidating man and Jack.

 

“You were preoccupied with Cho at the time”

 

“Ohh… So who is he?”

 

“Chase Young” Jack whimpered fearfully only for Chase to suddenly turn away from his conversation with one of the Professors and looked directly at him as if he’d heard Jack say his name. At the predatory smirk sent his way Jack squeaked in fright and ducked behind Ling.

 

“Holy crap! I‘ve never seen you so freaked out before!” Johnny stated in surprise as he watched the Goths extreme reaction “Why the sudden 1.80? You seemed to be in heaven when he danced with you!”

 

“That was before I rejected him! I practically threw his offer to be his Apprentice back in his face! And you don’t say ‘ _no_ ’ to _Chase Young_!” Jack cried out, not daring to peek out from being Ling.

 

“Chase Young…” Hikaru muttered to himself in thought “Where do I know that name from?…”

 

“Probably in a History book” Jack muttered, barely paying attention as all his focus was on hiding from the War Lord’s intense gaze.

 

“Huh…” Hikaru frowned at the comment, making a mental note to look into it later as Dumbledore stood-up to make one of his iconic ridiculous ‘Welcome Back’ speeches.

 

“Well if it makes you feel any better it doesn’t look like he wants to kill you” Johnny smiled in awkward encouragement at the freaked out Goth, speaking quietly as not to disturb the other students from listening to the HeadMaster’s speech.

 

“It‘s more like he‘s giving you bedroom-eyes” Ling grin teasingly “He totally wants to bang you”

 

“Like he wants to eat you alive” Hikaru snickered as he up at the mysterious guest and then at his albino friend.

 

 _‘Yeah. In Dragon-form’_ Jack mentally cringed at the graphic image that popped into his head at the thought, completely ignoring his friend's suggestion of what Chase actually wanted to do to him, assuming it was just them teasing him again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Who do you suppose that is then?” Ron asked as he barely listened to Dumbledore’s speech, trying to break the awkward silence that had settled over the three friends since the fight during the Yule Ball.

 

“No idea” Harry shrugged as he looked up at the Head Table, giving the mysterious stranger the once-over. He’d been trying to work out the man’s identity since he suddenly appeared the morning before, suspicious since Dumbledore hadn’t made an announcement to introduce him to the students like he normally did with other visitors “Do you think he‘s a Werewolf?” he asked, noting the unusual gold eye colour.

 

“Don‘t know” Ron shrugged “Other than the eyes he ain't got any of the other signs”

 

“Yeah. Lupin looked ill. This guy looks like he ain't been sick a day in his life” Harry nodded, taking in the mysterious man’s impressive build and flawless tanned skin. As if it wasn’t bad enough with all the good-looking Drumstrang students taking all the female students attention, now a guy that could impersonate a Greek God shows up! At least he didn’t arrive before the Yule Ball; finding a date had been hard enough and Harry knew he wouldn’t have been able to compete if all the girls had been holding out on the off chance the dark stranger asked them out.

 

“Oh for Merlin‘s sake” Hermione scoffed in frustration, giving up on giving Ron the silent treatment to correct them, which may have been Ron’s plan all along now that Harry thought about it… “That‘s _Chase Young_ , his family‘s been sponsoring Hogwarts since its founding!”

 

“How do you know everything?” Ron asked in surprise.

 

“I don’t” Hermione scoffed in irritation, “Fleur told me about him. Apparently, according to her, he and Spicer have some sort of history together”

 

“Since when were you friends with another one of our enemies?” Ron scolded, remembering her fraternization with Krum.

 

“Since she was nice enough to comfort me after the Ball and you were being a brat!” Hermione sneered before going back to giving the ginger boy the cold shoulder, having the last word and leaving the other to stew in his frustration and guilt while Harry shifted away from them.

 

He _really_ didn’t want to get involved with that _mess_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next day when classes started again Jack was still a bundle of nerves and paranoid energy resulting in him skipping breakfast as not to have to deal with the Heylin Warlord’s intense staring. He’d instead spent the time going-over his essay on the first Wizarding War, making sure it was perfect for his Defence Against the Dark Arts class with the Gryffindor‘s. he’d done a pretty good job of it if he did say so himself, he hoped it impressed Professor Moody with how much effort he’d put into it.

 

“Hey, Jack! Wait up!” Johnny grinned as he jogged over to meet up with the albino on his way to class, Hikaru and Ling bringing-up the rear at a slower pace.

 

“Sup‘ guys” Jack nodded in greeting, his arms full of papers so he couldn’t wave back at the two stragglers.

 

“Here,” the blond said handing the Goth a couple slices of toast “I managed to rescue these from Hikaru‘s bottomless pit of a stomach”

 

“Hay! I’m not that bad!” Hikaru pouted as he and Ling finally caught up with them.

 

“You were eyeing them hungrily since we left the Great Hall” Ling snickered “So what‘s all that?” he asked curiously, gesturing to the half-inch thick stack of papers in the short teen’s arms.

 

“Moody wanted an essay on the first Wizarding War” Jack shrugged speaking around the slice of toast sticking out of his mouth “I may have gone overboard”

 

  
“Wait! When‘d he assign that?!” Johnny panicked, thinking he’d forgotten to do some homework assignment. He couldn’t risk his perfect GPA now!

 

“At the Ball” Jack giggled at the blonds overreaction “It‘s extra credit”

 

“Oh…” Johnny sighed as they finally arrived outside the DADA classroom only to find the way blocked by Potter and Malfoy going at each other's throat again.

 

“It‘s about time the big oaf quit! Having a Half-Giant teaching is nearly worse than when we had a Werewolf for a Professor! Thank Merlin Professor Grubbly-Plank is back!”

 

“Shut-Up, Malfoy!” Potter sneered threateningly “I‘ve had enough of you bad-mouthing Hagrid!”

 

“What you going to do about it, Potter?” Draco smirked “Going to tell your mummy I was mean to you? Oh, wait! I forgot you haven’t got a- _Ow_!”

 

“Stop being a loser, Draco” Jack sighed in irritation as he smacked the back of the bleach-blonds head “What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be in class?”

 

“It‘s free-period” Draco scolded, rubbing the back of his sore head as the Golden Trio smirked at the Ravenclaw reprimanding him like a child, surprised that the Slytherin didn’t retaliate.

 

“So you decided to spend it bullying Gryffindor‘s instead of catching up on the shit-load of homework I know you ignored during the holiday?”

 

“Well, you see- the thing about that is-” Draco stammered, trying to lie his way out of the Goth’s disapproving stare, turning bright red as the seconds past and the crowd gathered around them stared at him with interest.

 

“Library.” Jack ordered in a bored tone “Go. Now.”

 

Biting his lip, Draco glared moodily at the Goth before quickly walking around him, followed by his surprised gang, towards the library like he was told. By now he knew better than to cross Jack when he was so serious; he knew what happened to Peregrine Derrick in detail and knew _exactly_ who hexed his underwear to shrink that one time. He’d rather put up with a little embarrassment instead of risking an Ultra-Wedgie!

 

“Impressively handled, Mr. Spicer”

 

“Ack!” Jack squeaked as he and the rest of the assembled crowd jump, spinning around to find Professor Moody watching the encounter from the now open classroom doorway.

 

“Constant Vigilance!” he scolded at their reactions “Well? What are you waiting around for? Get in!”

 

Scurrying in, the teens quickly took their seats in the dark classroom, settling down as Professor Moody hobbled his way to the front and falling down ungracefully into his chair “Alright then. I hope you have something for me, Mr. Spicer”

 

“Yes, Professor” Jack smirked as he stood and made his way up to the front before placing his stack of parchment in front of the grumpy teacher.

 

“What the bloody hells all this?…”

 

“My essay on the Dark Arts during the last war. I call it ‘Where You-Know-Who Went Wrong’ ” Jack explained with a hand gesture that looked as if he was framing the title in the air.

 

“That‘s what you decided to base the assignment on?” Moody wrinkled his nose in confusion before looking down at the impressive stack with an intense interest “And you found this much?…”

 

“Well you said to give you my view on the subject” Jack scoffed with a cocky smirk “And I found that the Dark Arts were poorly represented during the war”

 

“What‘s this all about, Professor?” Granger asked nosily from beside a scolding Potter, who’d picked-up most of the conversation.

 

“Mr. Spicer brought-up some interesting views on the Dark Arts during some of my previous lessons so I had him write me an essay” Moody snorted before gesturing to the intimidating pile of papers “He obviously has a lot to say on the subject, so why don’t you enlighten your classmates, Mr. Spicer?”

 

“Huh?” Jack asked in surprise, looking between the Professor and the curious gaze of his peers.

 

“Well, you obviously spent time digging-up real information on the War while the rest of the students here likely believe whatever the media or parents spoon-fed them. Tell them why you believe He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named failed and not that bullcrap: ‘ _Good always wins_ ’ ”

 

“Well history is written by the winners, not by the ‘Good’ ” Jack shrugged before turning to the class with a confident hip cock “Okay. So cliff-note version: the main reason why the ‘Dark Side’ of the war lost was that they didn’t make their agenda clear, even to its followers”

 

“They wanted to kill all Blood-Traitors and Muggles! That‘s pretty _clear_ to me!” Weasley interrupted rudely.

 

“But it was called the ‘Dark Rebellion’. He promised equality for all Dark Creatures and that went against the Pure-Blood supremacy he was promising his Death Eaters! So even his followers didn’t really know the goals they were working towards! It was all a conflict of interest!” Jack rebuffed Weasley’s denial easily, beginning to rant as his irritation at the sloppy evil scheme built.

 

“That‘s not to mention a ‘Rebellion’ normally attracts sympathizers from the opposite side, but because they tried going after _all_ Muggle-Borns and Half-Bloods, _The Majority_ , they weren’t gaining any sympathizers to their cause! And let's not forget the Dark Lord tortured his own followers! That inspires fear and revolt, not loyalty and respect! There wasn’t even an internal hierarchy set in place just in case something happened to their leader, in this case, something stupid like being killed by a baby that one of the Death Eaters could have been sent to deal with, that someone was there to take-over and continue to lead the fight for their cause instead of falling apart!” Jack finish his speech loudly, panting as a stunned silence was left over the deadly still classroom.

 

Taking a moment to calm down, Jack ran his fingers through his hair to regain his composure “And those are just a few examples of the real reason the Dark side lost during the last Wizarding War and not because Potter got lucky” _‘Mic Drop’_

 

“…I see you are very passionate about this, Mr. Spicer” Moody stated bluntly, breaking the awkward silence that had filled the air, as he watched the Goth with a new and more intense interest.

 

“I just think if you're going to try and take over the world you might as well do it right” Jack pouted, glaring at his jet-boots in a sulking manner “ There are a load more points I made in there you might find interesting” he grumbled, pointing at his essay laying on the Professor’s desk before quietly making his way back to his seat, not minding the stares he was now getting from his classmates.

 

“I expect I will, Mr. Spicer” Moody nodded slowly before locking the stack of papers away in his desk with more care them the brutish Professor usually showed "Now! On to today's real lesson-"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the reason I haven't updated in a while is because I had a Summer Job and was forced to live in the... *shudder* real world for the last couple months. Now I'm unemployed again I'll have more time to dedicate to writing.  
> ... Well, until I get a Christmas Job anyway :P


	31. Weird Genes and Lakeside Walks

 

 

“Is it me or has everyone been acting weird today?” Jack asked obliviously as another group of students gave him a wide berth as they walked past.

 

“They probably heard about your little speech in Defence” Ling explained casually.

 

“What about it?” Jack blinked cluelessly.

 

“They‘re freaked out by the fact that if you were around during the war You-Know-Who would have won” Hikaru stated bluntly.

 

“What? You really think so?!” the Goth asked far too enthusiastically for his friends liking.

 

“Yeah… you know what, Jack? You weird me out too sometimes with how well you‘d do as a Dark Wizard”

 

“Nah!” Jack waved off Hikaru’s concerns just as a first-year caught sight of them heading her way and ran in the other direction fearfully “No worries! I gave up the life of Evil _months_ ago”

 

“…Did he just say ‘Life of Evil’?” Johnny whispered nervously.

 

“Sure did” Jack grinned as they finally arrived at the Lake where they planned to spend their free period “It’s kind of a family tradition or right-of-passage” he shrugged as they settled under one of the larger tree’s “Well, on my dad‘s side anyway. Being Evil is kinda seen as a teenage ‘phase’ on my mom‘s side though, nothing really serious, just petty stuff like how Fleur used to help find me minions”

 

“Wait! Fleur was evil?!” Hikaru gasped in disbelief.

 

“Psh! Nah, Fleur was more of a troublemaker” Jack snorted “Now, Gabrielle! _She‘s_ gonna be Evil, I can tell!” he stated proudly.

 

“When you say ‘evil’, how evil are we talking about?” Johnny asked fearfully “Is she going to start randomly casting the killing curse or something?…”

 

“Doubt it” the Goth shrugged, leaning back against the tree trunk casually “She‘s a Delacour, not a Spicer. Besides, when I say Evil I mean it in a more detached scheming sort of way. Not a psycho maniac type of way”

 

“So she‘s more likely to ruin someone‘s life than take it?…” Ling summed up, deciding to just go with it. He was from an old Chinese family too so he understood how weird some family traditions could seem to outsiders, and as long as they stayed on the Goth’s good-side they should be okay.

 

“In a nutshell” Jack nodded “The psycho‘s come from my dad‘s side. It‘s rare, but they do pop-up every couple generations. I bet the next one will be my cousin Megan, I can see her doing some fucked-up shit once she hits puberty”

 

“But she‘ll grow out of it… right?” Hikaru wondered, following Ling’s lead and just accept it. They’d know Jack was weird from the start so there was no use freaking out about it now. In all honesty, it just made the albino more fun to hang out with; boring people were never fun to be friends with.

 

“No telling. Most of my family grow out of it quickly, others dedicate their entire lives to being evil to some degree”

 

“You have a weird-ass family, Jack” Hikaru snorted in amusement.

 

“Eh, it keeps thing interesting” Jack shrugged before glancing at his watch and climbed to his feet “We better head for the dungeons now. I don’t wanna be late for Potions”

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Can you believe that guy?” Ron scolded as he stomped through the castle's corridors with Harry and Hermione trailing behind him “I bet he‘s a Dark Wizard. No normal guy thinks like that!”

 

“I doubt it” Harry shrugged, not really caring about worrying if the new kid was a Voldemort supporter or not since he had other things to worry about, namely the next task and the egg that he still had no idea about. Not that he’d tell Hermione that “I don’t think a Death Eater wannabe would call Voldemort stupid”

 

“Don’t say his name!” Ron cringed fearfully “And I didn’t say he was a Death Eater, I said ‘Dark Wizard’! Why else would he think the Light won the war by accident?!”

 

“Well, he made a really good point” Hermione admitted reluctantly “I wouldn’t mind reading his essay sometime…”

 

“Are you saying You-Know-Who’s defeat had nothing to do with all the good guys fighting him?” the ginger asked sarcastically “That all those people died for nothing?”

 

“No! Stop putting words in my mouth, _Ronald_ ” Hermione scolded in irritation. Marlins’ beard; he was being such a dick recently! “But as much as I hate to admit it, Spicer is **_really_** smart and obviously knows what he‘s talking about. I was just thinking, how much do we know about tactical warfare? His essay could help prepare us in case something like that happens again, it could save lives”

 

“It could also help the next Dark Lord to not make the same mistakes” Harry muttered nervously as he thought about it. If _Voldemort_ ever got his hands on that essay Merlin only knows how much more damage he could do the next time around with that sort of information.

 

“I‘m just saying we shouldn’t trust that guy” Ron grumbled before dropping the subject.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After spending nearly two hours ogling his Potions Professor, Jack was surprised when at the end of the class, just as he and his friends were packing-up their stuff, the teacher suddenly acknowledge his existence for the first time that day.

 

“A word, Mr. Spicer” Snape called out just before the Goth had a chance to flee the classroom.

 

“Huh?” Jack blinked in surprise, looking at the dreamboat of a Professor over his shoulder.

 

“I told you to pay attention, Jack” Johnny squeaked fearfully as he and the other two Ravenclaw’s fled the dark room quickly.

 

“Oh yeah, leave me to my fate why don’t ya‘” Jack snorted sarcastically as he watched his friends run away and leave him with the scary Professor. Speaking of said Professor, Jack turned back to the sour-faced man and put on his best ‘innocent’ look “If this is about me daydreaming in class I‘m sorry Professor Snape, it won't happen again~!… Well, it probably will, but can you blame me? Your awesomeness is too distracting! Did you know your name literally means ‘To Sever Stolen Lands’? How cool is that!”

 

“Stop sucking-up, Mr. Spicer” Snape sneered, crossing his arms as he glared down at the swooning Goth “That’s not what I wanted to speak to you about”

 

“Whatever you say, sir” Jack smiled sweetly up at the intensely disapproving stare. He couldn’t help it, the Professor was just so dark and broody; he loved it! If only he had an Evil laugh, with a voice like his he‘d make a great villain!

 

Groaning in irritation, Snape had to physically stop himself from rolling his eyes at the new students' behaviour “I don’t care how you spend my lecture time Mr. Spicer as long as you do your work. But I don’t appreciate you being a distraction for the rest of the class” he sneered, giving the teen a suspicious look “Would you care to tell me why most of the Hufflepuff's were too busy watching _you_ when they should have been listening to **_me_**?”

 

It wouldn’t be so much of a big deal if he had any faith that the students not paying attention could actually pass his class without his lectures, but they had no chance. Snape wasn’t about to have his reputation as a teacher be ruined by having a quarter of the 4th years failing! Especially not because of one distracting child!

 

“Huh? There were?” Jack asked in surprise, snapping out of his admiration daydream as he tried to recall if he’d seen anyone watching him during class “I didn’t notice” he finally shrugged much to the Professor’s annoyance “But it‘s probably due to the essay I did for Professor Moody. According to Ling it freaked some losers out, and no offence to my boyfriend, but most Hufflepuffs are wimps”

 

“Why would something like that distract my students?” Severus frowned curiously, raising a single thick eyebrow.

 

“Well _apparently_ my views on the Dark Arts is weird and they all think I‘m a Dark Wizard now” Jack shrugged uncaringly. He put up with crap like this all his life, why should he start caring now?

 

“I see… And what are your views on the Dark Arts?” Snape wondered, not really expecting much since the Hogwarts rumour-mill was known for exaggeration. Not to mention the students were so stupid and gullible enough that they’d believe anything they were told.

 

“To sum it up? It‘s awesome, but not used to its full potential. Not to mention that the last Dark Lord was a terrible tactician, had no idea how to run an Evil army, and the good guys won by accident” the Goth stated bluntly, much to the Professors shock and horror.

 

“…I believe I can now understand why your peers are so concerned, Mr. Spicer” he said slowly, not sure if he should report this new development to the Headmaster. They knew the Dark forces were active and had somehow gotten Potter’s name into the Goblet, but none of them had even considered the Spicer boy. It _was_ rather convenient that a previously unknown boy from a family Snape knew to be associated with the Dark Arts would suddenly start attending Hogwarts, in Potters _own year_ , and during such turbulent times…

 

It was _very_ suspicious. But that didn’t answer his question of if he should report it.

 

If the Dark Lord somehow was returning and Snape had jeopardised his plans by reporting his suspicions, his Lord would not look favourably on him. But if the Dark Lord doesn’t rise and he didn’t say anything it could damage the faith Dumbledore has in him…

 

_**Ugh!**_ The troubles of being a Double Agent!

 

“You alright, Professor? You seem even more distracted than me!… Wait, that came out wrong” Jack pouted.

 

“I‘m fine, Mr. Spicer” Snape scolded, cutting off his train of thought as he looked over the short teen critically “I‘m sure something will happen soon to make your peers forget about this… ‘preposterous’ rumour soon, but I would prefer it if you would also pay attention in class”

 

“Eh, as long as I get ‘Outstanding’ does it matter?”

 

“Just get out, Spicer” Snape sighed in exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

“’Kay” Jack shrugged, heading to the door with a wave “see ya‘, Professor!” he called before closing the door and jogging up the stone stairs out of the dungeon basement.

 

“You're alive!” Ling squealed dramatically as the Goth came into view, throwing himself at the unamused teen.

 

“Yeah, no thanks to you lot. But at least you waited for me” Jack snorted, pushing the clinging teen off as they began heading towards the Great Hall.

 

“We love you, Jack, but not enough to face Snape for you” Hikaru shrugged good-naturedly “That‘s like asking us to fight a Manticore for you!”

 

“Our survival-instinct kicked-in!” Johnny agreed with a cheeky grin.

 

“He‘s not that scary” Jack scoffed “You want to know real fear? You should meet-”

 

“Hello, Spicer~”

 

“Chase!!!” Jack squeaked in terror, flinching away from the War Lord who had appeared behind them. Seemingly out of thin air “W-w-what can I do f-for you, C-Chase?”

 

“Walk with me” Chase ordered, walking past the stunned group, heading in the opposite direction that the teens were originally heading in.

 

“U-um, I was actually- It‘s time for-” Jack stammered, pointing towards the Hall where they were planning on getting dinner.

 

“ _Now_ , Spicer!” Chase barked, glaring over his shoulder at the Goth who scrambled after him with a fearful squeal, leaving his confused friends behind.

 

“Yes, sir!”

 

Facing forwards now that he knew for certain Spicer was following him, Chase allowed a smirk to make its way onto his face. Very pleased that even after his rebellious speech at the Ball Spicer would still follow his orders without much fuss. It was all the proof he needed that Spicer would be accepting or at least submit to him and his courting.

 

After a couple of minutes of walking away from the castle in tense silence, Jack began biting his lip as his anxiety raised. He had no idea what to do as he followed Chase quietly, scuffing his dress-shoes against the pebbled surrounding the edge of the lake as he walked. Should he make a run for it? Plead for forgiveness? He didn’t know! Chase had always been unpredictable and this situation proved it since he’d expected the War Lord to at least hit him by now, not to take him on a surprisingly pleasant stroll around the school grounds. The Lake was really pretty this time of day, the dusk light giving it a warm orange glow…

 

“So… you’re not going to kill me for, ya‘ know, being disrespectful to you during the Ball. Are you?” Jack asked, keeping an unsuspicious distance from the immortal as they stopped to look over the water, just in case he needed a head start running if he was wrong.

 

“Don’t be moronic, Spicer. I wouldn’t kill you” Chase scoffed.

 

“R-right. Sorry” Jack muttered, relaxing slightly as Chase insulted him; more comfortable with the familiar situation. The War Lord being mean to him he could handle, it was normal.

 

“I might _punish_ you, however” Chase smirked seductively “Nothing **_too_** rough though…”

 

“W-w-w-wha-?!”

 

“Later, Spicer” Chase waved off the bright red teens confusion easily as he turned back to face the lake, internally preening at the vivid reaction he gained from his suggestive tone. The bright blush contrasting against the albino’s white cheeks was very pleasing “I actually wanted to talk to you about your current life choices”

 

“W-which ones?” Jack asked absently, his confused mind slowly catching up with the new direction the conversation had taken, preferring to linger on the explicit mental image he had conjured up at Chases’ sexy tone of voice. Damn his teenage hormones! He should be terrified at the idea of the immortal punishing him, not turned on!

 

“Your rather sudden abdication of Evil concerns me mainly”

 

“Why? You said it yourself; I was more annoying than Evil!”

 

“Well, I have heard some interesting things that suggests that I may have spoken too quickly” Chase admitted casually as he watched Jack reach down and grab a handful of pebbles before skimming them across the water “It‘s clear to me now that you‘re a strategist”

 

“Really?” Jack scoffed, scolding in concentration as he flicked another stone; trying to hit a gathering of geese swimming across the surface of the lake and missing drastically “Because none of my Evil plots worked if I remember right”

 

“That‘s because you‘re a thinker, not a fighter” Chase grinned, slowly making his way behind the Goth and plucked the stone from his raised hand “Your plots were sound, but the executions were pitiful. You are a mastermind, Spicer-” pausing momentarily to flick the small rock with such speed and accuracy that it violently struck one of the birds in the head, killing it instantly and causing the rest of the flock to flee with squawks of terror “But you need someone competent you trust to get the job done”

 


End file.
